ii.';i;r,'-i;r;.ii :i;H 
 
 lEo: 
 
 IS 
 
 
 
VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AYLWIN," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1916 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
BOOK I 
 
 THE VESPRIE LUCK 
 
 524HSO 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RAINBOW TOPAZ 
 
 As late as the time of Elizabeth there were few 
 richer families in England than the Vespries. They 
 were always as remarkable for their wild and 
 adventurous nature as they were for their wealth. 
 
 The Vespries felt that Vesprie Towers was not so 
 much the residence of the family as part of the 
 family itself. To conceive the one without the 
 other was impossible with a Vesprie with any 
 imagination. 
 
 In this as in many other points the Vespries 
 resembled a Spanish more than an English family. 
 
 The inheritance received from his forefathers was 
 felt to be sacred by every Vesprie heir. No picture, 
 or weapon, or coat of armour, or gem or any other 
 relic of the great family had ever been removed 
 from any room or hall or gallery to be turned into 
 money. The Crown jewels were not more sacred 
 than were the Vesprie heirlooms. And the Ves- 
 pries seemed to feel, although there was no oppor- 
 tunity of acting upon their peculiarity, that the 
 son, inasmuch as he had more ancestors than his 
 father, was one degree more sacred than the man 
 that begot him. But in order for a family to keep 
 itself up on such lines as these it must have a 
 virility far greater than the Vespries owned. 
 
4 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Witn every generation the family became poorer 
 and poorer, and the mortgages upon the land became 
 heavier and heavier ; for the Vespries followed the 
 fashion as with families where gambling is the 
 dominant vice. 
 
 But it was a part of the Vesprie religion that 
 whatsoever money might be borrowed on the estate, 
 no inch of land should be sold out and out. In fact 
 some mysterious power called the " luck of the 
 Vespries " would always intervene at crucial 
 moments to save the Vesprie lands. 
 
 So long as the Vesprie family was able to hold its 
 place among the other patrician families of Great 
 Britain, and was able to stand up vigorously in 
 the battle of life, it was too actively employed 
 to find much time to speculate on what is called 
 " luck." It was when the family had dropped 
 away from its natural environments — when its 
 energies were numbed by the great paralyser, 
 poverty, that it commenced declaiming about its 
 luck. 
 
 The idea of the family luck expressed itself in 
 many forms. For instance, although the family 
 had become penniless, they still considered them- 
 selves the owners of the Vesprie lands — of the 
 pictures and antique furniture in the house. For, 
 as they argued, were they not the inheritors of the 
 Vesprie luck ? 
 
 The family believed that their descent from Lady 
 Godiva was amply verified by the fact of having in 
 their possession a topaz called sometimes the 
 " Godiva Jewel," and sometimes the " Luck of the 
 Vespries." 
 
THE RAINBOW TOPAZ 5 
 
 There was a tradition in the family that when 
 Lady Godiva devoted her wealth to founding the 
 monastery at Coventry, and gave her whole 
 treasure to it, she sent for skilful goldsmiths who, 
 with all the gold and silver she had, made crosses 
 and images of saints which she devoutly disposed 
 thereto ; but she retained one topaz which became 
 an heirloom of the Vesprie family. 
 
 This is why another sign was the mirrored rain- 
 bow itself in the placid waters of the mere or back- 
 water — a phenomenon so rarely seen (for the water 
 to produce it must be without a ripple) that it was 
 believed in that neighbourhood, though quite 
 erroneously, to be a sign entirely confined to the 
 backwater called the river Vesprie. 
 
 Connected with the phenomenon, or rather the 
 maker of the phenomenon, was a power called the 
 " Luck of Vesprie Towers." Whether the luck of 
 Vesprie Towers was a phenomenon — a spirit 
 governing the rainbow stone — or the phenomenon 
 itself was not very clear. It was a power haunting 
 the Towers and all the lands. In fact the idea of 
 this power seems to have been that of the genius of 
 the Vesprie family. It assumed various shapes. 
 When the seer was a son of the Vespries it took the 
 shape of a lovely girl. When the seer was a daugh- 
 ter of the Vespries it took the more appropriate 
 form of a beautiful young man. Mostly this luck 
 brought about by these powers and portents came 
 in the shape of a good marriage, and the number of 
 heiresses introduced into the family was quite 
 extraordinary. And sometimes it would occur that 
 when the finances of the family had again got low, 
 
6 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 the representative was a female possessing all the 
 Vesprie witchery, of w^hich so much has been said 
 in eighteenth century memoirs ; and then some 
 wealthy man was sure to come forward, marry the 
 daughter and take the name and arms of the family 
 by royal letters patent. 
 
 The last-mentioned fact, the fact that the for- 
 tunes of the family had been so often restored by 
 its female members marrying rich men, had caused 
 the Vespries to take a peculiar attitude towards 
 the female representatives of the race — the same 
 attitude as a gypsy tribe takes towards its female 
 members. The theory of feudality assumes that 
 the family characteristics descend in the male line 
 only in the human race. It is the theory of the 
 gypsies that in some families the most remarkable 
 characteristics are transmitted in an exceptional 
 degree through the female. And something like 
 this seems to have been the Vesprie doctrine. 
 
 But even when chances in the marriage market 
 refused to turn up, the luck of the Vespries was never 
 baffled. 
 
 It is only necessary to mention one or two of these 
 strange incidents. There had been for generations a 
 tradition in the family that the Vespries once 
 possessed the largest quantity of solid gold plate in 
 Europe. And indeed an old inventory showed that 
 the words " gold plate " really meant solid gold and 
 not merely silver-gilt, as it almost invariably means 
 in cases of this kind. The family tradition was no 
 doubt true, and the plate must have been of im- 
 mense value. 
 
 Now no trace of this gold plate could be found in 
 
THE RAINBOW TOPAZ 7 
 
 Vcsprie Towers ; and the tradition was that it had 
 been concealed for some reason or another, some 
 said to escape the claws of creditors, and others 
 said to keep it safe from the Protector's soldiers. 
 At the time when the land was on the eve of being 
 sold for the mortgage money a peasant in the 
 employ of the family was trolling in the mere and 
 his hook caught in something. He pulled gently 
 but firmly and raised to the top of the w^ater a piece 
 of gold plate which afterwards proved to be a 
 chocolate cup. But when the article in question 
 reached the surface it broke the line and sank again 
 to the bottom of the mere. The peasant went at 
 once to the Towers and told his master what had 
 occurred ; and the mere was at once dragged, and 
 then a large mass of gold plate and silver-gilt plate 
 was pulled up. Strongly as the Vespries of that 
 time desired to keep the plate in the family, the 
 keeping of the land in the family was a far greater 
 object. The plate not being among the positive 
 heirlooms was sold and realised an immense sum of 
 money, and from this source the mortgage was paid 
 off. 
 
 At one time a Vesprie would seem to have 
 restored the family fortunes by a method that did 
 not recommend itself to the Vesprie traditions 
 of honour. At a time when gambling was very 
 common it occurred to a Vesprie to invite gambling 
 friends to the Towers in order to win advantages 
 over them by the aid of the Vesprie luck. During 
 the play he used to wear, concealed in his breast, 
 the rainbow topaz, and the effect of this was that 
 he made vast winnings from guest after guest, until 
 
8 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 at last no one would consent to playing at Vesprie 
 Towers. 
 
 The gambling and extravagances and other vices 
 could have made hundreds of thousands melt away, 
 and they did. The land was again mortgaged — 
 mortgaged — mortgaged. 
 
 But in spite of everything the Vespries would 
 still have remained as the possessors of a moderate 
 affluence had it not been for a new craze about the 
 Vesprie luck. 
 
 At the time when all England had run mad about 
 George Hudson the railway king, Martin Vesprie 
 indulged in enormous speculations in railways. 
 He formed a friendship indeed, as far as a man of 
 family could form a friendship with the linen- 
 draper; and every "tip" that Hudson offered to 
 him was acted upon with childlike faith. And 
 before the railway mania had time to reach its 
 climax in 1847 — Vesprie had become worse than 
 penniless, in fact insolvent. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ISLAND OF POVERTY 
 
 From this moment the extraordmary isolation of 
 the Vespries from their own class began. The effect 
 of I he corn laws was felt, of course, by most of the 
 estates in that neighbourhood, and the result was 
 that almost all of them had changed hands. 
 
 One property, for instance, had been bought by 
 the son of a wealthy cotton printer ; another estate 
 had been bought by a few^ capitalists who had made 
 a colossal fortune by bearing Turkish and Egyptian 
 bonds at the time of the great fall in those securities ; 
 another had been bought by a speculator in Argen- 
 tine securities before the great fall in Argentines. 
 These wealthy folk would have been willing enough 
 to foregather with the Vespries on account of their 
 sang azur, but neither Vesprie nor his wife would 
 tolerate them on account of the air of smart 
 society which they always put on. 
 
 One of the most pleasant results of the invasion 
 of these parvenus was their lavish expenditure, 
 which entirely demoralised the whole neighbour- 
 hood. Poor as was Vesprie's father, he and his 
 wife were treated by the farmers and the yokels 
 with that respect which the unprivileged classes 
 are always willing to yield to the privileged 
 classes. Old Mrs. Vesprie, when she drove out in 
 
10 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 the pony carriage to make her purchases in Vesprie 
 village and to play — as far as her narrow means 
 would allow — the Lady Bountiful, expected and 
 always got that obeisance which she considered her 
 due. But to play the Lady Bountiful on nothing a 
 year is obviously disheartening. The wives of the 
 new parvenus became the Ladies Bountiful, and at 
 last the Vespries, dropping more and more out of 
 the yokel ken, rarely got bows from the school boys 
 and curtseys from the school girls, and as to the 
 grown-up labourers they ceased to touch their 
 greasy hats. 
 
 One would have thought that, encased in an 
 armour of pride as the Vespries were, these changes 
 in the bearing of the labourers would not have been 
 felt by them. But when pride is mixed with vanity 
 matters are different with the fallen ones. The 
 Vespries felt it very acutely. 
 
 One result of this life enisled by poverty from the 
 class in which the Vespries ought to have moved 
 was that their attitude towards the everyday life 
 moving outside them was something like that of 
 Don Quixote towards the life of the Spain of his 
 time. To them the world around them was as 
 picturesque as it had been in the lives of any of 
 their successive ancestors. Vesprie retained all 
 the formal courtesy of the manners of a previous 
 century. 
 
 But if the effect of the isolation of their family 
 life showed itself strongly in Vesprie, it showed 
 itself in a much more marked degree in his little 
 daughter Violet. And yet the style and bearing 
 of the child was as much unlike that of her father 
 
THE ISLAND OF POVERTY 11 
 
 as it was unlike that of the young children of her 
 own standing and years. 
 
 There is no more characteristic sign of the time 
 than the fact that an old family like the Vespries 
 could through poverty alone be entirely shut out 
 from the class to which they belonged. 
 
 If the well-to-do people in the county in which 
 Vesprie took rank let the Vespries drop out of their 
 circle so completely that their names were never 
 mentioned, it was inevitable that this should be the 
 case. Life is short — there are but few hours in the 
 day — a few days in the week — a few weeks in the 
 time devoted to house parties, gatherings at 
 shooting boxes and such-like social assemblages. 
 And the county people would have been quite 
 willing to receive the Vespries if they had not been 
 too poor to go out or to receive at home. 
 
 On the whole they would most likely rather have 
 gone to an expensive function at Vesprie Towers, 
 or at a London house belonging to the Vespries, 
 than they would have gone to an expensive function 
 at the country or town place of, say, a wealthy 
 soap-boiler or a Brazilian diamond merchant. 
 But then the one thing wanted w^as the expensive 
 function, and was it the fault of the county people 
 if the Vespries could not give an expensive function? 
 Another cause of the marvellous isolation of the 
 Vespries is this — that down to the time of Vesprie' s 
 father the family had been Roman Catholics, and 
 the major part of their friends were of the same 
 persuasion, and when Vesprie's father turned 
 Protestant they were already too poor for the 
 paternal anxiety of the mother Church, and they 
 
12 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 were also too poor to be of any account with the 
 grandees of the Protestant Church. And so 
 between these two stools they had already fallen 
 to the ground even before the great loss in the 
 railway mania already mentioned. 
 
 The Vespries were quite an exceptionally strong 
 and healthy stock, although far from a prolific one. 
 Violet and her brother Lawrence succeeded to the 
 splendid constitution of the Vespries. 
 
 All domestic work had now to be done by Mrs. 
 VesjDrie and the two children, and by the old 
 servant, Mrs. Jordan, who was an admirable 
 exemplar of the old type of domestic which is now 
 nearly extinct in England. Loyalty to the Ves- 
 pries was almost a religion with her. She was a 
 middle-aged woman, blue-eyed, fair, freckled and 
 with a thick crop of little sandy curls as thick and 
 short as the back of a Newfoundland dog, but with 
 the consistence of sheep's wool. 
 
 In this division of the domestic duties it was the 
 little boy's part to get up in the morning, light 
 the fire, clean the knives and boots and do other 
 things of a kindred nature. The little girl had 
 many duties ; among others she had that of attend- 
 ing to the poultry and dovecote. Her affection 
 for the animal world, especially for birds, made this 
 a very pleasant duty to her. Of pigeons she was 
 especially fond, and her attachment to them was 
 reciprocated. 
 
 The Vespries were all very skilful with the rod, 
 and the river and mere were full of fish — notably 
 of trout ; consequently a fish dinner was a very 
 frequent meal. 
 
THE ISLAND OF POVERTY 13 
 
 It was Mrs. Vcsprie's fine sense of caste that 
 prevented the children being brought up on Hnes 
 foreign to the true patrician nature. Still, they had 
 the feeling that they were living in a besieged camp 
 surrounded by aliens if not by foes. 
 
 There is no more remarkable sign of the great 
 change that has come over society within the last 
 few years than the fact that so old and distinguished 
 a family as the Vespries should have ceased so 
 entirely to be in touch with the county families 
 simply on account of their poverty. 
 
 Lawrence was a very singular boy, and no doubt 
 endowed with remarkable gifts. He had a share of 
 the lawless imagination of the Vespries, and although 
 in other matters his mind was prosaic, it was as 
 much possessed by the Vesprie luck as his father's 
 and sister's. He was constantly fuming over their 
 poverty, not as a disgrace but as an obstacle in life. 
 The Vesprie luck was seldom absent from his mind, 
 since it was upon him devolved the family duty of 
 making wealth somehow to restore the family. He 
 was sagacious enough even as a child to know that 
 the depth of poverty into which they had sunk made 
 it impossible that the Vesprie luck could be brought 
 about by marrying an heiress. His head was filled 
 with dreams of going to the colonies, becoming rich, 
 and in that way restoring Vesprie Towers to its 
 pristine glories. 
 
 Having imagined that he should make money in 
 the colonies, it soon seemed to him that the wealth 
 was already there, waiting for him to fetch it. 
 
 The children had got so used to their isolation 
 that they were as reluctant to go into the village 
 
14 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 as their father was reluctant to let them go, and 
 their only glimpse of the outer world was like a 
 glimpse of a panorama. Lawrence would under no 
 circumstances have associated with boys of his 
 own age whom he could not patronise, and the 
 known poverty of the family would have made it 
 difficult for him to find many henchmen in the 
 Vesprie village even if he had wished to do so. 
 There was one of his own age belonging to the 
 labouring class, however, with whom he presently 
 came to be on intimate terms of friendship, a 
 youth of remarkable qualities, and destined to play 
 a leading part in the luck of the Vesprie family. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A VISIT FROM " THE OGRE 
 
 About this time the entire household was put 
 into a state of great expectation by a letter 
 addressed to Rowland Vesprie. It was from 
 Messrs. Walton and Walton, the solicitors, and ran 
 thus : — 
 
 " Our client, Mr. Brandon, the mortgagee of 
 Vesprie Towers, is paying a flying visit to 
 England, and we have advised him to inspect 
 the property. This he has decided to do, and 
 he will call upon you some day during the 
 present week." 
 
 The whole family were now on the qui vive for the 
 advent of the visitor. Day after day passed, and 
 the mortgagee did not make his appearance, and 
 it was at last assumed that the invasion had either 
 been postponed or abandoned. One day, however, 
 Vesprie and his son Lawrie having gone out to fish 
 in the river, had left Mrs. Vesprie seated in the 
 drawing-room, near the carved oak fireplace orna- 
 mented with the Vesprie arms. The room was 
 panelled with oak and had seats of oak in the 
 window recesses. It had a comfortable, almost a 
 snug, appearance, except that the old Turkey carpet 
 was worn brown and threadbare and in some places 
 
16 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 actually in holes. The lady was speculating 
 upon the great daily enigma that occupied her 
 life — the question of ways and means. Suddenly 
 the door opened and Mrs. Jordan came in, ex- 
 claiming in a voice of suppressed excitement, 
 " He's come, mum ! Looks for all the world just 
 like a methody preacher in his dress, and jist like 
 a cod's head and shoulders in hisself. But he 
 certainly looks very kind." And she handed Mrs. 
 Vesprie a card on which was written "Mr. Brandon." 
 
 Mrs. Vesprie showed great surprise at his personal 
 appearance, and no wonder. Never was there such 
 a meek-looking gentleman seen before. And yet 
 assuredly he was no beauty. He was a somewhat 
 round-shouldered, short-necked, fair-complexioned, 
 bald-headed gentleman of about sixty, with large 
 blue eyes, expressing an extraordinary benevolence, 
 and a large thick-lipped mouth whose protuberant 
 lips in some odd way did not suggest the animalism 
 which such lips usually suggest, but seemed in 
 harmony with the benevolent eyes. His mouth 
 was never entirely closed, for he breathed through 
 it as if there was a stoppage in the nostrils. His 
 voice, although not at all unpleasant, was rather 
 thick. 
 
 It is very likely that Mr. Brandon knew not only 
 about the penniless condition of these representa- 
 tives of a great family, but also about the increased 
 pride which so often comes with such a position, for 
 he approached Mrs. Vesprie with an air of as 
 much deference as if she had been a duchess, 
 guessing no doubt that this air of deference would 
 be like a breath of paradise to the poor lady. 
 
A VISIT FROM "THE OGRE" 17 
 
 He told Mrs. Vespric that his object in calHng 
 was to see the great estate of which he had the 
 honour to be the mortgagee ; and asked per- 
 mission to see such rooms in the building as it would 
 be quite convenient for him to see, and be allowed 
 to walk through the grounds. 
 
 "From the little that I know of business matters," 
 said Mrs. Vesprie, after the gentleman had taken a 
 seat, " I think you have more right upon this 
 property now than we have." 
 
 " Not exactly so," said Mr. Brandon. " You 
 have still what the lawyers call, I believe, the 
 equity of redemption, and in point of fact you 
 are still the owners, nominally at least, of the 
 estate." 
 
 " I should really be very grateful to you, Mr. 
 Brandon, if you would tell me what is now our 
 position here ? " 
 
 It was evident that Mr. Brandon had the greatest 
 desire to make the interview as agreeable as 
 possible. 
 
 " It is yours," he said, " subject to the discharge 
 of the mortgage debt." 
 
 " But I understand," said she, " that the mort- 
 gage debt is considerably greater than the value 
 of the estate, owing to so many of the farmers 
 being frightened into giving up their farms on 
 account of Free Trade, and consequently ceasing 
 to pay rent." 
 
 " Temporarily that is so," said he, " but let us 
 hope that the depreciation in the value of land will 
 be only temporary. You will remember, madam, 
 that although the ruin of British agriculture was 
 
18 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 predicted in '46, in the very next year, notwith- 
 standing the increase in the importation of wheat, 
 prices became higher than they had been for many 
 years." 
 
 " Yes," said the lady ; " but your soHcitor, when 
 he called, said that that was entirely an accident — 
 the extremely bad harvest of 1847, and the outcry 
 among all the farmers in the country is for the 
 reduction of rents." 
 
 " As I said before, madam, let us hope for the 
 best." 
 
 " In the meantime," said the lady, " you are a 
 heavy loser." 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Brandon, " that is so. My 
 solicitors, Messrs. Walton and Walton, after the 
 death of their previous client, Mr. Beggs, recom- 
 mended the mortgage of the Vesprie estate to me 
 without certainly taking into prospect the repeal of 
 the Corn Laws, and it is for me to bear the brunt 
 of their mistake. In the present condition of things 
 the Vesprie estate would not now realise, if sold, 
 the money advanced upon it." 
 
 " This is unfortunate for you, Mr. Brandon," 
 said Mrs. Vesprie, in a tone which showed that she 
 had been impressed by the sort of atmosphere of 
 kindness radiated, as it were, from the visitor. 
 
 " Yes, undoubtedly, it is unfortunate for me," 
 said he, " but I have still plenty and to spare. 
 Everything is disposed by Providence ; and the 
 loss on this estate does not distress me — not in the 
 least, on my own account." 
 
 " Then on what account does it distress you, Mr. 
 Brandon ? " 
 
A VISIT FROM "THE OGRE" 19 
 
 " Well, madam, it does not really distress me at 
 all. ^yhat I meant was that I intended to leave 
 all my projDerty to benefit the Moravian cause of 
 which an ancestor of my dear wife's was one of the 
 founders — to endow a Home for destitute girls. 
 And the more my property is diminished the less 
 there will be for the good cause, and I cannot but 
 regret that. But as I have said, madam, everything 
 is in the hands of Providence." 
 
 " I understand," said Mrs. Vesprie, " that even 
 now if the money were to be repaid, the Vesprie 
 property would belong to the Vesprie family as it 
 has done for so many generations ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly," said Mr. Brandon, " that is so, 
 and for your sake as well as for the sake of the good 
 cause, I sincerely hope it will be found possible for 
 Mr. Vesprie to redeem the land." 
 
 " Ah," said Mrs. Vesprie with a sigh, " in such 
 days as these the chances are greatly against such 
 good fortune ! " 
 
 Her speech was cut short by a startling exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 " The Vesprie luck, mother dear ! don't forget 
 the Vesprie luck." 
 
 " Violet," exclaimed Mrs. Vesprie, reproachfully. 
 
 The words had come from a soft childish voice. 
 It was little Violet Ves2:)rie who, dangling a sun 
 bonnet in her hand, passing in front of a modern 
 French window which had been queerly inserted in 
 the wall of the ancient building, had overheard 
 every word of the conversation. 
 
 She was standing in the attitude that soldiers call 
 " standing at ease," the main part of the weight of 
 
20 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 the body supported by the weight of the one leg, 
 while the other leg was slightly bent. 
 
 Mr. Brandon rose from his chair and stood and 
 gazed at the child upon whom the sun was 
 falling aslant so as to illuminate two-thirds 
 of her face. His dull blue eyes seemed to 
 protrude and his lips to grow wide apart. Mrs. 
 Vesprie saw that it was not merely the loveli- 
 ness of the child which caused so much emotion 
 in the visitor. Something else had stirred the 
 man's soul to its very depths. Mr. Brandon put 
 his hand upon the golden head and began strok- 
 ing it gently in an inexpressibly fond way, while 
 his eyes moistened. Then turning to Mrs. Vesprie 
 he said, making a great effort to speak, " You 
 have indeed the Vesprie luck. You prize this 
 possession as I should — more than all the Vesprie 
 lands, and more than all the money advanced 
 upon them." 
 
 The child looked up into his face, and, smiling 
 sweetly, said, " Why, Lawrie and I used to call you 
 the Offre ! But that is because we did not know 
 you. You look so kind. ..." 
 
 " Violet I " said Mrs. Vesprie, in a vexed and 
 angry tone. 
 
 " You look so kind," said the child, " that I 
 think I may tell you a secret, sir. My brother 
 Lawrie, when he gets to be a man, is going abroad, 
 and he is going to bring home lots and lots of 
 money, and then Lawrie will be very rich and he 
 will pay you. That is what he told me only last 
 night. But you won't be in a hurry, sir. It will 
 take some time to do — so Lawrie says ! " 
 
A VISIT FROM *'THE OGRE" 21 
 
 Mr. Brandon's eyes became more moist still as 
 he said, " May I kiss you ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the child; "I should like you to, 
 because you look so kind." 
 
 He stooped, and as he kissed her on the fore- 
 head seemed as though he were putting his lips to 
 something more sacred than human flesh. The 
 child then walked out into the garden. 
 
 Mr. Brandon looked after her in silence. He was 
 evidently trying hard to master the deep emotion 
 the child's appearance had caused within him. 
 When he turned round to Mrs. Vesprie he said, 
 " You will forgive me for being overcome by the 
 sight of that child. I had children once, and have 
 lost them. The last, little Edie, I lost not a month 
 ago. She was not so lovely as your child. But 
 she was part of my very life." 
 
 " I am grieved," said Mrs. Vesprie, " that so 
 good a man should have sustained so terrible a 
 loss. I feel — I know that you are very good, and 
 I am distressed to think that you have lost large 
 sums of money by our unfortunate affair." 
 
 Mrs. Vesprie put out her hand and Mr. Brandon 
 took it, and there was something quite magnetic 
 in the grasp between the aristocratic lady and 
 the plebeian Moravian which each of them 
 understood. But the fact is that in really good 
 people there is always a kind of good breeding, 
 exactly as in selfish people there is always bad 
 breeding. 
 
 After a pause, Mr. Brandon said, " What did the 
 child mean when she said that she used to call me 
 the Ogre ? " 
 
22 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Oh," said Mrs. Vesprie with an air of deep 
 mortification, " my husband has a fooHsh way of 
 talking about family matters before the children, 
 and as the power of a mortgagee over the land is so 
 great, the children got into the way — the unreason- 
 ing way of resenting that power." 
 
 " I see," said Mr. Brandon, laughing. " But the 
 sweet child perceived at once that the Ogre did not 
 wear a particularly devouring look." 
 
 '' I never saw her take to anyone in that way 
 before. She is most wilful in her likes and 
 dislikes — most wilful," said Mrs. Vesprie. 
 " There seemed to be quite an attraction between 
 you." 
 
 " You do not know how happy you make me by 
 saying that," said Mr. Brandon. 
 
 There was silence between them. Then Mr. 
 Brandon said, " It is mainly the deep interest that 
 I feel in Vesprie Towers — in this relic of antiquity 
 — that has impelled me to ask your permission to 
 see it and indeed to ramble over it, and through 
 the park." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Mrs. Vesprie, " that my 
 husband is not in at the moment." 
 
 " I shall enjoy roaming over the place alone more 
 than anything else," said Mr. Brandon, as he passed 
 through the French window. " I will take the 
 outside of the Towers first." 
 
 " You will scarcely be able to understand the 
 plan of the house without referring to this little 
 book," said Mrs. Vesprie, rising and taking the 
 booklet from a side table. "It is the Vesprie 
 Guide, and was compiled by our local antiquary." 
 
A VISIT FROM "THE OGRE" 23 
 
 Mr. Brandon made a bow that was so sincere 
 that it became ahnost graceful in spite of the 
 awkward movement of his body, and left Mrs. 
 Vesprie alone. 
 
 Mrs. Vesprie looked after him thoughtfully, for 
 Mr. Brandon's evident love at first sight of the 
 child had set her dreaming. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE LITTLE LADY-GUIDE 
 
 Mr. Brandon had taken the booklet that Mrs. 
 Vesprie lent hnn and sauntered down the pleasaunce. 
 Such interest, however, as he had begun to feel in 
 the old park and ruins of Vesprie Abbey was 
 eclipsed, or perhaps it was absorbed in the interest 
 he felt in the child. Suddenly he came upon her 
 in the stableyard. A flock of pigeons w^re flying 
 around her and sitting upon her shoulder and her 
 golden head, the hair of which was so thick that 
 she seemed to suffer no inconvenience from their 
 claws ; and some were putting their beaks into her 
 mouth as though kissing her. 
 
 " You feed the pigeons, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes," said she, " and the poultry, too. There 
 are many — many things that I do now since all the 
 servants have left, except Mrs. Jordan. But 
 Lawrie lights the fires and brushes the shoes ; and 
 he can make them shine. You should just see 
 them ! Good-bye ! I am now going into the 
 poultry yard." 
 
 This sign of the family poverty touched Mr. 
 Brandon to the quick ; but he felt powerless 
 to do anything for them — save in the matter 
 of rent — walled round as he knew the family to be 
 by pride. 
 
THE LITTLE LADY-GUIDE 25 
 
 " The pigeons seem very fond of you, my dear," 
 said Mr. Brandon, following her. 
 
 " Yes," said she, " and I am very fond of them. 
 They know all about the Vesprie luck and when it 
 will come. That's what Lawrie says." 
 
 And then she began to prattle about the Vesprie 
 luck and the various signs of it, from which Mr. 
 Brandon gathered that between the birds of Vesprie 
 Park and the Vespries there had always been 
 sympathy ; that a very rare bird, the golden oriole, 
 was very specially associated with the family, and 
 also that the Vesprie pigeons had from time 
 immemorial been associated with the Vesprie luck. 
 He gathered that when any misfortune was looming 
 in the near distance for the Vespries it was indicated 
 by the pigeons, and indeed by the rooks and by the 
 Vesprie birds generally. He gathered that the 
 pigeons and the rooks dwindled in number and the 
 cooings and cawings became not only less frequent 
 but more languid ; and that even the song birds 
 showed a sense of approaching trouble. He 
 gathered further that the approach of good fortune 
 to the Vespries was indicated by the vivacity of all 
 the birds. This charming nonsense seemed scarcely 
 nonsense as it came from the child's prattling lips. 
 
 As Mr. Brandon moved meditatively away he 
 murmured, " Sweet, sweet child 1 Rent, of course, 
 I shall never get, but they shall never be dis- 
 turbed until I do what I thought of doing with the 
 property." 
 
 As he was sauntering around looking at the build- 
 ing, he was rejoiced to see the child running after 
 him, and he stopped. 
 
26 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Would you like me to show you the banqueting 
 hall, and the panel pictures ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Brandon, " there is nothing 
 I should like so much, if you will be so kind." 
 
 And he let her lead him into the house. 
 
 She took him into the great entrance hall, in one 
 corner of which was a staircase up which she led 
 him. This took them to an enclosed gallery which 
 ran round the inner part of the three sides of the 
 building, and gave access to the rooms in the upper 
 storey. 
 
 When they reached the magnificent room which 
 the child called the banqueting hall, which occu- 
 pied the wide space over the gateway, deserted as it 
 was and empty as it was, the bright summer sun 
 pouring through the great mullioned window and 
 illuminating the high-pitched roof of oak and the 
 shattered remains of old oak carving and panelling, 
 black as ink, gave a cheerful aspect even to such a 
 scene. They went to the great window and looked 
 out over the Home Park. She then pointed out to 
 him the pictures on the walls. 
 
 The pictures interested him ; but what absorbed 
 Mr. Brandon most was the mixture of intellectual 
 force combined with childishness in the little girl. 
 She seemed to know every picture and to know 
 about the character of the person delineated, and 
 as she prattled on he would be alternately struck 
 with the precocity and with the infantine character 
 of her mind. 
 
 She took him along the corridor to another room 
 where there was an extraordinary black oak antique 
 chair which had at once attracted Mr. Brandon's 
 
THE LITTLE LADY-GUIDE 27 
 
 attention. It was Anglo-Norman in shape, and 
 originally, no doubt, the massive oak had been plain 
 and micarved, but now the sides and back of the 
 chair were partially covered with carvings of diffe- 
 rent epochs, in which the Tudor rose predominated. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Violet, " you are looking at the lucky 
 chair. They say that if you fall asleep in it the 
 Vesprie luck will come to you in a dream." 
 
 " The Vesprie luck ! " murmured Brandon ; 
 " even this child is bitten with the gross super- 
 stition." 
 
 " It came to me again last night," continued 
 Violet, " and it was a wonderful dream. Shall I 
 tell it to you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Brandon, for his dread of supersti- 
 tion was overmastered by his desire to listen to 
 anything that the child would talk about. 
 
 " It came to me," said she, " as I sat on this 
 chair and fell asleep just before bedtime. I saw 
 everything as plainly as I see you ; and even now 
 when I shut my eyes I can see it all again. I 
 thought I heard a voice say, ' If Violet lives here 
 alone, like the princess in the fairy story, the 
 Vesprie luck will come to her.' You know the 
 story of the princess who slept for a hundred years 
 in a tower until the spell was broken by the prince 
 who was to come and wake her with a kiss ? And 
 then I found that Lawrie and my father and mother 
 had all left me, and that I was lying on a couch, and 
 I seemed to be both awake and asleep, and alone 
 like the princess in the fairy story. I thought I 
 lay there in the Towers alone and waited day after 
 day for the Vesprie luck, and I thought there came 
 
28 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 one day a knock at the door and I rose and opened 
 it. And there stood the prince, and he seemed in 
 great distress about something.'* 
 
 " Go on," said Mr. Brandon; " you interest me 
 very much." 
 
 " Well, I noticed something quite wonderful in 
 his eyes. They seemed to show what he was 
 thinking about. And I said, 'Who are you ? ' And 
 he said, ' I am the Vesprie luck — the good luck of 
 the Vespries and my own bad luck.' " 
 
 " Oh, did he say that ? " said Mr. Brandon ; 
 " and what did he say after that ? " 
 
 " He said, ' Come outside and walk with me and 
 see what you shall see ! ' And he took me by the 
 hand and led me out, and I saw that everything 
 round me was changed as if the fairies had changed 
 it. All the place was restored — the yew trees were 
 all clipped into beautiful shapes and the fountains 
 were all springing up from the lawns. And then he 
 put his arm round my waist and kissed me on the 
 forehead and I lifted up my face and kissed him. 
 And then I woke and found myself sitting in this 
 chair — was it not a wonderful dream ? " 
 
 " Very wonderful indeed," said Mr. Brandon, 
 who had already begun to feel that the image of this 
 child was coming between him and his own dream of 
 a Home for destitute girls. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE^MIRRORED ^RAINBOW 
 
 Mr. Brandon now plainly saw that, to the child, 
 Vesprie Towers was a part of her own being. 
 She seemed unable to imagine her own existence 
 apart from the Towers, or the Towers apart from 
 herself. 
 
 " Would you like to see the old arches of the 
 abbey and the mere ? Nobody can show the ruins 
 to you so well as I can." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Mr. Brandon, taking the little 
 soft fingers in his own. 
 
 " Because they're haunted," she said, " and 
 almost everybody is afraid except Lawrie and me, 
 and even Lawrie seems rather afraid, but you 
 mustn't tell him I said so." 
 
 " And you are not afraid, then, yourself ? " 
 
 " No," she said. " I like the spirits and they 
 like me, especially the water fairies of the mere." 
 
 " Oh, but you must not believe in such heathen 
 stories as these about water fairies ! The only 
 spirits are the angels of the Lord who are always 
 watching over us." 
 
 Meanwhile the summer clouds in front of them 
 were darkening and a shower seemed imminent. 
 But these two were so absorbed in each other that 
 they gave it no heed until Mr. Brandon exclaimed. 
 
30 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Look at that beautiful rainbow in front of 
 us!" 
 
 Then the child passed into a state of great excite- 
 ment, and clasping his fmgers in her little silky ones 
 she said, " Run — run to the water and let us see if 
 the sun has painted the mirrored rainbow ! " 
 
 Mr. Brandon was evidently a poor runner, but he 
 did his best to keep up with the child, and when 
 they reached the water's edge they perceived the 
 fascinating phenomenon of the mirrored rainbow. 
 
 The child dropped his hand and clasping her 
 own hands behind her began to chant a sort of 
 incantation — 
 
 " Vesprie luck shall never die, 
 While the rainbow in the sky 
 Makes a rainbow in the water 
 For a sign to son or daughter." 
 
 Then she stood quite still with flashing eyes and 
 parted lips watching the rainbow till it faded. She 
 then pointed to the ruins and said, " That's where 
 we are going now ! " 
 
 Mr. Brandon stood and looked at the ruins in 
 silence for some time. They stood upon a some- 
 what rocky elevation which was scarcely big enough 
 to be called more than a knoll. Close to it was the 
 mere which was fed by an extremely circuitous 
 backwater of the river. This backwater was 
 originally the river itself, but during the time when 
 so much of the traffic of England was borne by 
 water, a very wide and perfectly straight canal had 
 been dug from one arm of the old river to the other. 
 This backwater was called the old river. To the 
 right the serpentine course, as it neared the mere 
 
THE MIRRORED RAINBOW 31 
 
 suddenly narrowed and was nearly concealed by 
 the trees for a space beneath the rise on which the 
 ruins of the old abbey stood. So circuitous indeed 
 was the line of the stream that the two irregular 
 lines of trees from the two banks seemed to meet at 
 the end of the view, leaving, however, a narrow 
 shaftlike opening — a sort of telescope made of 
 green foliage, through which poured the light, 
 softened and yet strangely enriched in its passage. 
 Through this verdurous orifice could be seen, on 
 the little hill, the ruins of Vesprie Abbey, the quiet 
 pathetic remains of foregone generations of Vesprie 
 ancestry. The ivy climbed to the very top of one 
 or two isolated arches, and the lonely gables, which 
 had been long left by the crumbling side walls and 
 roofs to carry on alone the war with Time. 
 
 The pedestrian, following the course of the back- 
 water as it narrowed, was surprised to come suddenly 
 upon the mere, which covered a large area of the 
 lower land lying around the abbey hill. 
 
 The mere was oblong and grew narrower until it 
 ended in the backwater again. 
 
 They now turned back towards the Towers. Mr. 
 Brandon re-entered at the French window and there 
 the child left him, to go to her beloved pigeons. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A LENIENT MORTGAGEE 
 
 When Mr. Brandon re-entered the room in which 
 he had left Mrs. Vesprie after wandering alone for 
 a while round the estate, he found her alone. 
 
 " My little girl has been acting as cicerone to you, 
 Mr. Brandon," she said ; " she has been telling me 
 something about it. There is nothing that she 
 likes so much as to act as cicerone over Vesprie 
 Towers. I hope she has not wearied you? " 
 
 " Wearied me, madam ? " said Brandon, in a 
 tone that seemed to say, " Could an angel from the 
 skies have wearied me ? " " She is a very wonder- 
 ful child, Mrs. Vesprie, a very wonderful child." 
 
 " It is very kind of you to take so much interest 
 in her, Mr. Brandon. But she has clearly only been 
 showing you her best side. Her faults you have 
 yet to learn." 
 
 " Faults ? " said Brandon in a dreamy tone. 
 " What faults can such a child have, I wonder ? " 
 
 " First," said Mrs. Vesprie, " she is what my 
 servant calls a regular tomboy. The only person 
 of her own age that she has ever been with is her 
 brother, whom she adores, and he has all the rough 
 ways of a boy with athletic tastes. She never knew 
 a little girl in her life ; she does not know a single 
 child's game that is not a boy's. In climbing trees 
 
A LENIENT MORTGAGEE 33 
 
 she would put most boys to shame, I think. Her 
 games are peg-top, cricket, football, and running 
 races with her brother, and — and boxing." 
 
 " Dear me," said Mr. Brandon ; " a wonderful 
 child indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes, and she has many lovable qualities. But 
 tell me, Mr. Brandon," said Mrs. Vesprie, " what is 
 our actual position here ? I suppose that you take 
 the rents of the land in payment of your interest and 
 that the rents are not enough to pay the interest ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is so." 
 
 " But what about the Towers ? Rumours have 
 reached us that you intend to pull the place down." 
 
 Mr. Brandon made no answer, but stood looking 
 meditatively out of the window, when suddenly 
 his face was illuminated by a smile. Violet, who 
 was passing along the pleasaunce, was smiling and 
 kissing her hand to him. He turned to Mrs. Vesprie 
 and said, " Even if the Towers were at present 
 legally and fully mine, it would not follow that I 
 should want to pull it down, although undoubtedly 
 the site is very specially adapted to my scheme of 
 endowing the twentieth century with a Moravian 
 temple." 
 
 " But what about the occupancy, Mr. Brandon ? " 
 
 Mr. Brandon knew from conversation with his 
 solicitor the simple, unreasoning pride of the family. 
 He also knew their delusion as to the Vesprie luck. 
 Moreover, his heart had gone out to that child in a 
 marvellous way, and he longed for some oppor- 
 tunity of benefiting her without rousing the 
 jealous, suspicious pride of the family. 
 
 " Mrs. Vesprie," he said, " I consider the place 
 
 V.T. © 
 
34 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 so absolutely unlettable that I couldn't consent to 
 take any rent at all. It is really a kind service to 
 me for this fine old relic of antiquity to be left in the 
 care of the representative of the illustrious family 
 with whom it is associated. I wish Mr. Vesprie 
 would grant me the privilege of an arrangement of 
 this kind." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Vesprie came in. 
 
 " I could not consent to such an arrangement," 
 said he. " That would be quite impossible. I 
 should become a mere caretaker. And I have every 
 confidence that this mortgage will be paid off — 
 some day." 
 
 Mr. Brandon glanced at Mrs. Vesprie and saw on 
 her face an expression in which dismay seemed 
 blended with anger. Turning to Vesprie he then said, 
 " Then if rent is to be paid, I am a conscientious 
 man and shall only name a low rent. I suggest that 
 you can pay into my bank eighty pounds a year for 
 the occupancy of the Towers and the gardens and 
 the immediate grounds, and retain absolute freedom 
 to use the deer park and the mere, and you can pay 
 the rent quarterly or half-yearly, or annually, or 
 whenever you like." 
 
 " Eighty pounds a year," said Vesprie. " I am 
 a poor business man, but surely the rent is very, 
 very low." 
 
 Again Mr. Brandon glanced at Mrs. Vesprie and 
 saw the same expression. 
 
 " Why, the fruit from the orchard alone," con- 
 tinued Vesprie, " why the fruit from the orchard 
 alone " 
 
 "The fruit from the orchard?" Mr. Brandon 
 
A LENIENT MORTGAGEE 35 
 
 interposed. '' ^\Tiy, Mr. Vesprie, that remark alone 
 shows how poor a business man you are ! If that 
 fruit was within ten miles of Covent Garden, rest 
 assured I should ask you much more. But the 
 railways by their exorbitant freightage have 
 managed to destroy market gardening. Eighty 
 pounds a year," he continued decisively, "is the 
 rent that I have fixed for Vesprie Towers." Then 
 he said in a still more decisive tone, " Eighty 
 pounds a year." 
 
 Mrs. Vesprie's eyes grew moist with gratitude as 
 she looked at him. She knew full well that the 
 wdtchery of the child had entirely conquered the 
 mortgagee, and she also knew that the good man 
 W'Ould have preferred to let them live rent free. 
 
 '* I will tell my solicitor to send you an agreement 
 for signature for the occupancy of the place at that 
 rent," said he. 
 
 And he took his leave. 
 
 After Mr. Brandon was gone, Mrs. Vesprie burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " My dear Rowland," she said, " what a baby 
 you are, and what a source of ruin this family pride 
 is ! We have two children to bring up upon 
 nothing. You yourself could not earn five shillings 
 to save your life, and through you the children are 
 being brought up on the same lines. Apart from 
 the rent it would have been a terrible plight for us 
 to live here even to pay taxes, buy food and clothes 
 and firing out of nothing a year." 
 
 " And you w^ould really have the family live on 
 charity ? " said Vesprie. 
 
 '* Rather than starve ; and yet," said Mrs. 
 
 Da 
 
36 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Vesprie, " I have more of the true pride of the class 
 to which we belong than you have ! In a choice 
 between charity and starvation I choose to accept 
 charity for the sake of the children." 
 
 " You take a most unphilosophical view of the 
 question," said Vesprie. " And you always seem 
 to ignore the influence of — of — the Vesprie luck." 
 
 " My poor children ! " said Mrs. Vesprie with a 
 sigh. " I can think of nothing more cruel — than 
 to bring them up to believe that they are not penni- 
 less, and to feed them on dreams of the Vesprie 
 luck ! " 
 
 " Ah ! You are not a Vesprie," said Rowland 
 Vesprie. And he left her alone. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RULING PASSION 
 
 Seven years had elapsed since the incidents 
 recorded in the last chapter, and still the Vespries 
 remained at the Towers, and still they paid no rent, 
 and still no rent was ever asked for ; indeed, Mr. 
 Brandon's agent seemed to have had instructions 
 to let the family live there rent free, if they would 
 only consent to do so. 
 
 The produce of the orchard and garden, and the 
 sale of a valuable picture in the Vesprie gallery, 
 now and then, contrary to family traditions, proved 
 sufficient to pay the taxes and rates and to keep 
 the Vespries not only well fed, but well clad. 
 
 Meanwhile Lawrence Vesprie became restless and 
 irritable, and at last announced his intention of 
 going to South Africa to make his fortune. This 
 gave distress to the family, but still they looked 
 upon it as being a move towards the Vesprie luck. 
 
 Another picture was sold and Lawrence went out to 
 Cape Town with one hundred and fifty pounds in his 
 pocket. About a year after Lawrie's departure from 
 Vesprie Towers a great trouble befell Violet and her 
 father. Mrs. Vesprie died suddenly. And so the 
 inhabitants of the island of poverty had dwindled 
 to two — Rowland Vesprie and his daughter Violet. 
 
 Both Vesprie and Violet were skilful trout 
 
38 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 fishers, and they were both good shots, and many a 
 luncheon and dinner was the result of their skill 
 When she could find time from her domestic duties 
 Violet was very fond of putting on her thick shoes 
 and short dress and walking beside her father with 
 a gun. 
 
 But she now had to do everything that was done 
 in the two or three rooms they occupied of the endless 
 rooms at the Towers. Rising early in the morning, 
 she took her father's coffee to him in bed — for being 
 a Vesprie he felt himself entitled to little luxuries — 
 swept the rooms, dusted the furniture, arranged with 
 the few tradesmen's boys who called with the meat 
 and bread, and the milk ; prepared the omelette 
 for luncheon — for Vesprie could not do without an 
 omelette — went out afterwards for a walk with him, 
 or for a row on the mere. 
 
 It was not until after dinner that she found time 
 to interest and amuse herself in her own way, 
 that is to say, by reading Shakespeare and every 
 drama of every dramatist that she could find in the 
 library. It was, perhaps, the theatrical more than 
 the poetic part among the dramatists that originally 
 attracted her. There was not a farce or a melo- 
 drama or a comedy in such collections as the 
 " London Stage," or the British or Bell's Theatre, 
 that she had not read and studied over and over 
 again. And as she read she would every now and 
 then spring up from her seat and act the part, 
 marching up and down as if on the stage. 
 
 She was in truth a born actress, and had she been 
 trained for the stage in childhood, a splendid career 
 would have been before her, if she had chosen. 
 
THE RULING PASSION 39 
 
 After she had occupied herself for two or three 
 hours in this way she would lapse into silence and 
 sit quiet as a stone, her face resting between her 
 two palms. 
 
 Now and then among the very few letters that 
 ever reached the Towers the postman would bring a 
 hasty scrawl from Lawrie, each one filled with wild 
 stories of wealth in immediate prospect. Vesprie 
 accepted these wild stories. 
 
 One morning, however, the news came that his 
 son, who had joined the irregular cavalry at 
 the Cape, had been killed through a fall from his 
 horse. The terrible effect of this news upon 
 Vesprie did not come entirely or even mainly from 
 his affection for his son. But he felt that it 
 sounded the death knell of the Vesprie luck. 
 Around this fantastic source of hope every tendril 
 of his life had been winding and clinging. Lawrie 
 would make money in some way or another, and 
 come back and pay off the mortgage, and keep the 
 Vesprie luck in the Vesprie family. But now it 
 was not merely that there was no one left to bring 
 back the wealth. There was no one left to carry 
 on the family but Violet. And how dare he hope 
 for a wealthy marriage now that the family had 
 become so pauperised ? And without a wealthy 
 marriage how could Violet be the means of bringing 
 about the Vesprie luck ? 
 
 The Vesprie family would become extinct, and he, 
 having lost his hope in the Vesprie luck, now began 
 to fade away day by day. He would sit in a listless 
 way in one room all day long. But the worst 
 feature of this collapse was that he took a dislike 
 
40 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 to Violet — the sweet child who loved him so dearly. 
 He began to resent her being a girl. She seemed to 
 have come into existence by pushing away a possible 
 boy. This was heart-breaking to Violet, and she 
 was profoundly miserable. 
 
 Great as was her own grief at the loss of her 
 brother, it was soon swamped in her greater grief 
 at the loss of her father's love. 
 
 One morning when Violet took his coffee up to 
 her father she noticed an extraordinary change in 
 him. The melancholia that she had noticed so 
 much had been replaced by an extraordinary state 
 of exhilaration. 
 
 " A sudden light has come to me about the Ves- 
 prie luck," said he. "I was as usual thinking all 
 night about it, when a sort of illumination flashed 
 through me, and I became a changed man. Vesprie 
 Towers will after all be restored exactly according 
 to the old plan. I used to think there could be no 
 Vesprie luck because there could be no Vesprie to 
 live in the Towers. But now I know that you are 
 the Vesprie that will carry on the family. Yes, it 
 is you that will find it," said Vesprie. " You must 
 devote your life to seeking for it, and I think that 
 you will find it in the mere." 
 
 Violet was greatly puzzled. She did not know 
 that mysterious law of the human mind which in 
 the most literal sense makes the wish father to the 
 thought. The feeling that the Vesprie luck was 
 dead had brought about the melancholia ; but all 
 the time the man's mind was clamouring for the 
 support of the old idea of the Vesprie luck, and 
 just when the melancholia was on the verge of 
 
THE RULING PASSION 41 
 
 passing into actual insanity, a dominant idea 
 returned and asserted itself and set the mental 
 wheels turning in the old direction, and the mind 
 sought and found another explanation of the 
 Vesprie luck. 
 
 From this moment Vesprie's mind was running on 
 finding a treasure, and it became something like a 
 monomania with him. A great portion of the day- 
 was spent either on the mere, in the boat, or by its 
 margin, for it was evident that his idea of the 
 finding of the treasure was connected with the 
 mere. 
 
 Violet at last grew as concerned at this new 
 obsession as she had been at the old one, and tried, 
 but in vain, to talk him out of it. She became still 
 more alarmed to learn, as she did one night, that it 
 induced somnambulism. 
 
 One evening she was disturbed by a noise in the 
 passages. On going out of the room she saw her 
 father partly dressed walk along the passage, unbolt 
 the door, and go out upon the pleasaunce. She 
 followed him as he moved rapidly towards the 
 margin of the mere. She then w^alked beside him ; 
 and on looking into his face she found that he 
 was in a state of somnambulism, and she heard 
 him whisper, " Diamonds and rubies — the Vesprie 
 luck ! " 
 
 Then she saw him make straight for the little 
 skiff moored to the bank and step into it, take the 
 oars and pull out into the centre of the mere. 
 Presently the skiff stopped ; then he rose in the 
 boat with an oar in his right hand, which he 
 plunged into the water. Then he again raised the 
 
42 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 oar and sat down to row back to the mooring 
 place. 
 
 She knew of course that he was dreaming about 
 the lost treasure, and the gold plate he believed to 
 be concealed in the mere. 
 
 He stepped from the boat, tied it to the mooring 
 post, and retraced his steps along the path he had 
 previously taken. As he passed her she saw an 
 expression on his face, an expression of exultation 
 and joy ; and in his arms he seemed to be hugging 
 an imaginary treasure and she heard the loud, 
 triumphant whisper, " At last — found at last I " 
 as he walked along towards the Towers. 
 
 She followed him. 
 
 She knew that he was fast asleep and would know 
 nothing about it in the morning. 
 
 This scene was often repeated ; and in every 
 case Violet followed him, but dared not awaken 
 him. 
 
 The strain upon the emotions in Vesprie's mind 
 was evidently telling upon his strength. He 
 seemed to be getting weaker day by day. But 
 Violet had no idea that his end was so near. 
 
 One morning he complained of being very much 
 out of sorts. He felt feverish ; he had throbbings 
 in the head. " Violet," said he, "" I am dying ; but 
 I die happy now, for I know — as I told you before — 
 I know that the Vesprie luck will come to you ! 
 Now, my dear, you must promise me not to leave 
 Vesprie Towers when I am dead, but to remain here 
 in spite of everything and everybody — remain, and 
 wait for the Vesprie luck. No one can turn you out. 
 Remain and wait I And now there is another 
 
THE RULING PASSION 48 
 
 thing that you have to promise me in order that I 
 may die happy. It is this — that when you are an 
 heiress — as you will be — when the Vesprie luck has 
 made you rich and the owner of Vesprie Towers — 
 free from all mortgages, my dear, free from all mort- 
 gages — and offers of marriage are made to you (as 
 there will be, and plenty of them) do as all the 
 Vespries have done — refuse to marry any man who 
 will not take the name of Vesprie I " 
 
 Violet sat down beside his bed. " Then you are 
 confident, father," said she, "that the Vesprie luck 
 will come some day — confident in spite of every- 
 thing that points against it? " 
 
 " Yes, Violet ! The great distinguishing feature 
 of the Vesprie family is a belief — an unconquerable 
 belief — in the Vesprie luck." 
 
 " But there is no one to inherit it, father — no one 
 save myself." 
 
 " It will come to you," said he. " Have you 
 yourself no feeling that it will come to you ? " 
 
 " Well, father, yes. I have something which 
 I think may be called faith in the Vesprie 
 luck." 
 
 " Try to put it into words, my dear. What is 
 your feeling ? " 
 
 " That would indeed be very difficult." 
 " Try, Violet — try," said her father. 
 " Well," said she, " I can only call it a delightful 
 feeling of the unforeseen — a delightful, delicious 
 sense of the romance and the wonderfulness of the 
 great life outside this little island of poverty, and I 
 feel that even if I were driven out of Vesprie Towers 
 it would only be to encounter, among the innumer- 
 
44 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 able chances of life — the — the golden chance of 
 making me the owner of Vesprie Towers, through 
 the Vesprie luck, in the end." 
 
 After Vesprie had remained perfectly silent for 
 some time, he lifted himself up feebly from his 
 pillow, and Violet, perceiving that he had some- 
 thing important to say, bent over him in order to 
 catch every whispered word. 
 
 " Violet," said he, " don't forget to have the 
 hatchment put up right over the door — the hatch- 
 ment of the Vespries — you know where to find it." 
 
 Violet gave her promise, and Vesprie sank upon 
 the pillow and the last words she ever heard from 
 his lips were " The Vesprie luck ! " 
 
 And it came about that her father was buried in 
 the old chapel upon the estate, where, as Violet felt, 
 the spirits of his ancestors would be an incomplete 
 gathering without him. 
 
 So it happened that poor Violet had to do what 
 surely no other scion of the great family had 
 ever had to do before. She had to get a ladder 
 and nail the hatchment over the door herself with 
 the assistance of one of the tradesmen from Vesprie 
 village. 
 
 And now, even if Violet had known where to 
 go, nothing would have persuaded her to leave 
 the house that she had promised her father she 
 never would leave. Besides, as the Towers had 
 the reputation in the neighbourhood of being 
 haunted, it was avoided by the villagers, and she 
 therefore had no feeling of dread at the thought of 
 living there alone. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MARTIN REDWOOD 
 
 Violet had not been living many days in solitude 
 at Vesprie Towers when she received a letter which 
 touched her very deeply. It came from Madeira, 
 and it ran thus : — 
 
 " Dear Young Lady, 
 
 " You may possibly remember the Ogre — a 
 certain old gentleman to whom you were so kind, 
 years ago, by showing him over Vesprie Towers and 
 its beautiful park. I am he ; and I have learnt 
 with deep sorrow of the death of your dear father. 
 Of course I cannot guess what your projects now 
 are, but it will give me the deepest pleasure to know 
 that you are still living at the Towers and honouring 
 it with your sweet presence. My return to England 
 will, I trust, be fairly soon. In the meantime if you 
 should want the advice of a friend, or any other kind 
 of assistance, you can, I think, have no sincerer 
 
 friend than 
 
 " The Ogre. 
 
 " P.S. — Do not fail to believe in what you call 
 the Vesprie luck, and what I call the dispensation 
 of Providence. I begin to beheve in it as much as 
 if I were a Vesprie myself." 
 
 Mrs. Jordan, who had come from London, where 
 
46 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 she was now residing, at the news of Vesprie's death, 
 was standing in her bonnet and shawl, for she was 
 that morning returning to town. 
 
 When Violet read this letter out to the old 
 servant, she said, " My dear child, this does me a 
 power o' good. I shall leave you alone for a little 
 while much more comfortable now. For mark my 
 words, my dear, if this kind old gentleman ain't 
 the Vesprie luck hisself, he's the very body as is 
 going to bring it about 1 This old gentleman fell 
 in love with you when you was a child. And no 
 wonder ! For there ain't many old gentlemen as 
 wouldn't ha' fallen in love with you. For never 
 was there such a lovable child as you, as I ought 
 to know better than most, being the one as nussed 
 you and suckled you. Now there's nothing so 
 strong in the world as an old gentleman's love 
 for a child such as you was, whether that old 
 gentleman is a father, a grandfather, or an 
 uncle, or just an old gentleman as is a stranger. 
 He worships the very ground on which the little 
 feet walked ! And there's nothing he won't 
 do for you. Of course, you know what them 
 words mean about any other kind of assistance. 
 They're as much as to say, ' My dear, how I 
 should love to send you some money, only I 
 dussn't, you being such a great lady born.' And 
 o' course you know what them words mean about 
 the Vesprie luck. They mean that he's made a 
 will, and has given you Vesprie Towers, and all 
 the land." 
 
 " Why, what nonsense you do talk, Jordan ! " 
 .said Violet, laughing. " What nonsense you do 
 
MARTIN REDWOOD 47 
 
 talk ! Still, he's a dear, kind man, and — and I love 
 him ! " And she put the letter to her lips. 
 
 Violet wrote a letter to her friend and told 
 him, among other things, that Mrs. Jordan had 
 been to see her, but that as she now kept a lodging- 
 house in London she was obliged to return to 
 town. 
 
 The letter written, she went out for a stroll. It 
 was a lovely autumn day — so bright and sunny that 
 it seemed as though a day of June had come wander- 
 inor baek ; indeed the birds seemed to think so, for 
 they that had remained silent during July, and 
 seemed intending to remain silent until another 
 spring-tide, burst into song. 
 
 Violet walked herself into sueh a state of exhilara- 
 tion that she did not observe that a rain-cloud was 
 passing overhead until she became conscious of that 
 magical indescribable light in the sky opposite to a 
 rainbow. Then a sudden thought came upon her 
 and she ran as fast as her legs would carry her to 
 the wide part of the breakwater which spread out 
 into the mere. 
 
 " Yes," said she, " there is the sign — there is the 
 rainbow in the water." 
 
 And she stood and gazed at it. The bow was 
 almost entire, until a slight breeze sprang up and 
 ruffled the stream and it faded away. She stood 
 for a long time looking at the water, and then she 
 turned and looked round among the trees as though 
 she expected to see a face through the opaline 
 gossamer threads that were gleaming from branch 
 to branch. But although she did not see any face 
 under the Vesprie Oak, or among the trees, one was 
 
48 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 there. It was that of a young man in sailor's dress. 
 He stood with wide open eyes and parted Hps 
 gazing at her ; and so close to her that he could 
 distinctly hear the words, " The luck of Vesprie 
 Towers," that fell from her lips. 
 
CHAPTER IX ^ 
 
 THE REDWOOD FAMILY 
 
 It so chanced that the young sailor, whose 
 attraction for Violet was so marked during the 
 phenomenon of the rainbow^ was the youth already 
 mentioned as destined to play a very important 
 part in the Vesprie drama. He was the son of 
 Jeremiah and Joan Redwood, who lived at Thorn- 
 ton, a town adjoining the village of Vesprie. 
 
 Jeremiah Redwood was a sort of celebrity in his 
 way. He was none other indeed than the " Stratford 
 Slasher," a remarkably fine-looking but disreputable 
 fellow. 
 
 At an unlucky moment Joan chanced to be 
 thrown across Jerry Redwood. He was, at the time 
 when they first met, one of those dashing young 
 soldiers endowed with all the splendour of a magnifi- 
 cent physique, and in Joan's romantic eyes there 
 was something peculiarly fascinating in a soldier ; 
 and although it soon became known that Redwood 
 was a hard drinker, she was seen before long walking 
 out with him. And in spite of the fact that he 
 afterwards became a reprobate, a ne'er-do-weel, a 
 poacher, and an eminent pugilist, she shut her eyes 
 to all his faults and closed her ears to all attacks. 
 The character of this woman was indeed forcibly 
 show^n on the day of her marrying the Slasher. 
 
50 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 When it first became known that Jerry Redwood 
 was walking out with her, she was warned by all her 
 friends — and notably by the mistress of the national 
 school — that to marry such a man was to destroy 
 her future life. 
 
 With passionate sobs she exclaimed over and over 
 again, " It was to be I I strove against it, but it 
 was like striving against a stream I It's a part of 
 my bad luck — but it was to be I " 
 
 She was from the first the bread-winner for the 
 entire family. 
 
 In a town like Thornton there are hardly any 
 openings for women in Joan's condition of life save 
 that of sheer physical drudgery, but she under- 
 took this with sublime courage. There was nothing 
 to which she would not turn to earn a shilling, 
 whether it was needlework or laundry work, 
 charing or field work. She was the favourite char- 
 woman of Thornton on account of the enormous 
 amount of work that could be got out of her, and in 
 field work she excelled in an equal degree. 
 
 Joan Redwood had one great passion which 
 swallowed up all the other passions, and governed 
 every act of her life — love of her children. It is 
 very doubtful whether during all the waking hours 
 of the twenty- four there was one in which her 
 thoughts were not either directly or indirectly about 
 her children. With most mothers, in all countries and 
 in all communities, it is the man-child that they 
 yearn for, and when possessing it, dote upon it to the 
 partial exclusion of other love ; and it is for the 
 man-child that the mother especially thanks God. 
 So strong is this in patriarchal and primitive com- 
 
THE REDWOOD FAMILY 61 
 
 munities like those of some parts of Asia, that the 
 mother has but little affection to expend on the 
 daughter. Among the Bedouins, where the passion 
 for the man-child is perhaps strongest of all, the 
 woman feels that to give birth to a daughter is to 
 suffer a disgrace. 
 
 And even in the heartless world of English 
 society, where all other kinds of love seem to have 
 withered away, where there is no romance or pre- 
 tence of romance, where the young people are older 
 than their parents — blasd and worldly — even there, 
 the love of the mother for her son is as vigorous 
 as ever. It is the one thing that keeps London 
 society swxet and bearable to a noble nature — 
 without it society would become odious indeed 1 
 
 It was our Ando-Saxon ancestors that broucrht 
 into civilisation the importance and lovableness of 
 woman ; among English and American people, one 
 might expect that the influence of this Anglo-Saxon 
 idea might display itself more frequently than it 
 does. And when we come to consider the matter 
 we shall not be surprised at the cases where the tie 
 between mother and daughter is very much stronger 
 than the tie between mother and son. 
 
 Howsoever strong may be the affection between 
 mother and son, there must needs be one tremendous 
 barrier — the barrier of sex, that barrier which in 
 love-matters of man and woman becomes a rainbow 
 bridge of beauty, leading to a new and unex- 
 pected paradise ; but between mother and son and 
 between brother and sister, this barrier is impass- 
 able. The two can only touch each other at a few 
 points at all, and those not the essential ones. 
 
52 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 In some rare and great and lofty female souls, 
 like that of Joan Redwood, the spiritual impact 
 between mother and son is not strong enough to 
 satisfy the mighty yearning of affection. Some- 
 thing closer is demanded. There must be that 
 sense of companionship which can never exist 
 between them. 
 
 This closeness of touch can only be seen between 
 mother and daughter ; and if all women were like 
 Joan Redwood, if they were as free from egotism 
 and selfishness and vanity which can poison a 
 mother's blood so entirely as to make her daughter 
 her own rival, the feeling here alluded to would be 
 common and perhaps universal. There would be 
 between every mother and daughter that delicious 
 feeling of intimacy — that divine sensation of 
 living over again that fairy - like life in one's 
 own girl which made Joan's life a blessing to her, 
 even with the wolf snarling at the door. And 
 was Molly worthy of all this affection ? Yes, 
 indeed ! She was without Joan's strength of 
 character and will and exceeding bravery, and 
 indeed she had lived so much under the protecting 
 wing of " mother " that these characteristic traits 
 of Joan, even if they had originally existed, would 
 have been smothered up. But Molly had all Joan's 
 affectionateness and instinct for self-abnegation ; 
 and she was beautiful too. This to the mother was 
 an added tie. Had Molly been plain, crippled even, 
 she would have had from Joan an amount of love 
 such as few daughters win. But it would have been 
 a different kind of love from that which Joan 
 conceived for the little child who loved above all 
 
THE REDWOOD FAMILY 58 
 
 things, when very young, to lie on the quaintly 
 knitted hearthrug made of innumerable tiny pieces 
 of cloth of every colour with her head on her mother's 
 feet when she was knitting or sewing. Yes, Joan 
 was happy even with the wolf at the door. 
 
 Day by day did this extraordinary affection 
 between mother and child grow, until at last, by the 
 time that the young brain of this daughter had 
 developed so that her intelligence had become on a 
 par with that of her mother's, there seemed to be 
 between the two something of that strange kind of 
 telepathy which is supposed to exist in certain 
 cases between twins of the same sex. 
 
 The records that come to us of the strange kind 
 of sympathy which existed between the two 
 brothers Lucien and Louis de Franchi, which gave 
 Alexandre Dumas the root idea of the finest of his 
 stories, " Les Freres Corses," are too w^ell authenti- 
 cated to be brushed aside by the materialist, and 
 only the other day the newspapers contained a 
 well-authenticated story of the same kind, in which 
 a well-known lawyer of Chicago, whose twin brother, 
 who was in Manilla, became conscious through 
 sympathy of his brother's death. 
 
 But whether these stories are to be accepted as 
 literally true or not, there are certain cases — rare 
 ones no doubt — in which there exists between 
 loving mother and loving daughter a power which 
 can only be called telepathy. 
 
 The mysterious chain between them was not 
 exactly that of distinct thoughts, it was that of 
 emotion which, acting upon the organism, produced 
 a sort of semi-conscious sensation. \\Tien the 
 
54 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 spirits of one were good the spirits of the other rose ; 
 when the spirits were low the spirits of the other 
 were depressed. 
 
 On the day upon which this sailor son entered his 
 mother's cottage after his walk across Vesprie Park, 
 his mind full of the beautiful vision of Violet in the 
 light of the rainbow, he spoke to her of his encounter 
 in glowing terms. His mother listened to him in 
 silence. 
 
 Now this woman, Joan Redwood, was descended 
 from an extremely ancient peasant family named 
 Thornton, which were very likely living on the soil 
 at Thornton when William the Conqueror came 
 over. Whether the family belonged in those days 
 to the " lower orders " who shall say ? For were 
 not the descendants of the very Tyrrell beneath 
 whose arrow William Rufus fell, still living in the 
 New Forest the other day ? And was there not 
 till lately, living at Kettering, within a few miles of 
 where the writer of this book was born, an agricul- 
 tural labourer named Plant, the true and last 
 descendant of the Plantagenets ? In a word, may 
 not Joan Redwood's family in Saxon times have 
 been thanes ? Indeed, to judge from Joan's 
 appearance, there might well have been a lost 
 strain of the patriciate in her blood compared with 
 which the Vesprie strain itself might be dim and 
 uncertain. 
 
 " Violet Vesprie ! " said Mrs. Redwood at last in 
 a tone of contempt. " We have ancestors as 
 well as the Vespries. But their lives have been 
 different I Their ancestors caught poachers in 
 
THE REDWOOD FAMILY 55 
 
 man-traps. Our ancestors were caught. You've 
 heard of the old story of Sir Hugh Vesprie, 
 haven't you, Martin ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother," said he. 
 
 " Do you know what became of the daughter he 
 left behind him ? " said she, " the daughter who 
 was robbed of her rights by that ancestor of the 
 Vespries — the nephew of Sir Hugh, the crusader ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " The old story is that she was handed over to a 
 woodman to be done away with, and his name was 
 Thornton, the same as mine before I was married," 
 said the mother. " But she was not done away 
 with : she married, and she married the woodman's 
 son. And now what is the difference between you 
 and this girl that your head seems so full of this 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 " Difference ? Why, mother, what can you mean ? 
 I am only a common sailor, the son of a pugilist ; 
 Miss Vesprie is a high-born lady, ^yhat is the 
 difference between me and this beautiful girl ? 
 Wliy, I am hardly fit in my station of life to black 
 her boots ! " 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 violet's friend 
 
 And now began the most marvellous life ever 
 lived by any young girl. Violet lived alone in the 
 home of her forefathers and communed with their 
 shades. 
 
 Circumstances had combined to bring out with 
 strong emphasis all the strange features of her 
 nature. Outside the little family circle she had 
 never known a friend. And now, after the first 
 acute grief for her father's loss had subsided, Violet 
 did not feel in the least lonely. She had lost all her 
 companions, except her ancestors and the old house 
 where they had lived, and these were all-sufficing to 
 her, for these had always been her chief companions. 
 
 Perhaps the reader will say with incredulity : 
 What ! a young girl of seventeen not feel lonely 
 living a solitary life like that ? But such a reader 
 would not understand a character like Violet 
 Vesprie — and such a reader would do well to put 
 down this book and read no more. 
 
 To wander down the long passages or through 
 the vast, empty rooms, reading her Shakespeare or 
 some other dramatist, to hear the empty spaces 
 answering her recitations, as though they loved 
 them, was quite as delightful to Violet as any social 
 intercourse would have been. 
 
 Human nature loses as much as it gains by its 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 57 
 
 grcgariousness. After the mind has been cultivated 
 and enriched as far as it can be by the results of 
 civilisation, solitude is perhaps the cause of the 
 last crown of intellectual development. Solitude 
 brings meditation, and only meditation, properly 
 considered, is true life. 
 
 One day she found among the old books an 
 edition of Chaucer, and she began to read it. At 
 first she found the old spelling and the archaic 
 words somewhat difficult ; but she loved intellec- 
 tual difficulty, and she worked at Chaucer with a 
 will, and in a little time she found Chaucer as easy 
 to read as Shakespeare. And now what a new 
 world of delight was open to her ! not even Shake- 
 speare had touched as the delightful poet touched 
 her. She discovered that there was a true kinship 
 between her and Chaucer ; and no wonder, for 
 if health in poetry is the sweet acceptance and 
 melodious utterance of the beauty of the world as 
 it is, Chaucer is the most healthy poet that has 
 appeared in any literature. His delight is to repre- 
 sent. Of all poets he is the most purely artistic ; 
 so that he can paint for his own enjoyment and 
 ours a beautiful picture, he cares not from what 
 source he draws his materials. 
 
 The riches and the wonderfulness of life — these 
 are his theme — a theme which is as fresh and 
 delightful now as it was in his time, and as fresh and 
 delightful as it was when all those countless stories 
 of romantic adventure, upon which his poetry and 
 all the imaginative literature of the West are built, 
 were lisped in the Aryan cradle. 
 
 Of the simply terrene poets Chaucer is the king. 
 
58 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Weeks passed, and Mrs. Jordan did not come from 
 London to see her, as she had expected. She was 
 too occupied with her lodgers. But Violet was not 
 at all depressed; on the contrary, her feeling was 
 a kind of exhilaration, so entirely had she enjoyed 
 living alone. She took the precaution to keep as 
 far as she could the knowledge of her lonely exist- 
 ence from the Thornton people ; and when anyone 
 such as the tradesmen called to ask after Mrs. 
 Jordan she answered that she was quite well. 
 
 Perhaps the best way to make the reader under- 
 stand the peculiar nature of this remarkable girl 
 will be to give in full a letter she wrote to Mr. 
 Brandon in answer to one she got from him in 
 which he expressed his concern at the idea of her 
 living alone, and asked her to tell him the way in 
 which her days were passed. 
 
 " My dear, kind friend," she wrote to him. 
 " Your letter has touched me so deeply that I find 
 it very difficult to write to you. You have been so 
 kind that I am longing to see you. But you must 
 not suppose that I am in the least unhappy because 
 I am living in the dear old place alone. On the 
 contrary, my days are so full that I am startled by 
 the swiftness with which they pass. In the morning 
 I get up and light the fire for my breakfast ; and if 
 it is winter I warm the water for my bath. Then 
 there is the delight of a strong girl like me with an 
 appetite like mine — the appetite of a browsing deer 
 at dawn — in taking my breakfast alone. After 
 breakfast I often sit with my elbows on the table 
 looking out of the window, lost in the joy of living 
 in such a beautiful world. Every shrub in the 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 59 
 
 foreground, every tree in the middle distance or 
 beyond the mere, touching the horizon, is a com- 
 panion I love. I seem to know every kind of bird 
 that twitters or warbles on the lawn, and I seem to 
 enjoy it far more being alone than if I had been 
 with companions. 
 
 " I start as though awakened from a dream, and 
 attend to the business of the day, business which 
 would have been prosaic enough had I not been 
 alone. But the solitude seems to give poetry to it : 
 the very dusting of the room with no sound to 
 disturb me, except the wind in the trees, and the 
 music of the birds, seems a mysterious rite in honour 
 of the mysterious goddess Silence. 
 
 " Then there is the mounting the vast old stair- 
 case and entering the room where I have slept with 
 the morning sun shining on the bed, for I chose a 
 room with an eastern aspect, and begin to toss my 
 bed about and feel just like a chambermaid ; and 
 it is a nice feeling to be so strong and able to do 
 things for yourself ; and I often make it look so 
 smooth and delicious that I feel half inclined to 
 throw myself on it again to enjoy its springiness. 
 Then there is the running down stairs to answer the 
 summons of the butcher, or baker boy, or milk boy. 
 Then there is the preparing of my luncheon and the 
 cooking of it. You've no idea what a delightful 
 occupation cooking is, except that it sometimes 
 makes you so uncomfortably warm. Then there 
 is my morning prowl round the garden, and the 
 orchard, to look after the vegetables, and to enjoy 
 the sight of the apple blossoms, if it is spring, or the 
 beauty of the fruit, if it is autumn. Is there any- 
 
60 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 thing in the world so sweet as the scent of a Rib- 
 stone pippin ? or the beauty of the rime frost if it 
 is winter ? 
 
 " And you must know that this garden, without 
 any gardener but myself, stands the severity of the 
 winter better than it would do if I could afford a 
 gardener ; for while he, during the autumn, would 
 be thinking about neatness, / am thinking about 
 the coming winter ; and instead of clearing away 
 the leaves I brush them away into great heaps, and 
 then, as winter approaches, I brush them over 
 the beds like counterpanes ; and there the roots 
 lie, laughing at the frost and waiting for the 
 spring ! 
 
 " Then there comes the eating of the luncheon, 
 most enjoyable because I am alone. In the after- 
 noon there is the row on the mere, and then the 
 preparation of the dinner, and the eating of that. 
 You can see how the greedy girl keeps talking 
 about eating ! 
 
 " And shall I tell you which are my two 
 favourite plays ? They are ' As You Like It ' and 
 ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' These I know by 
 heart, and I believe I could recite them from 
 beginning to end. But for many weeks I have been 
 deep in Chaucer, whose poems have opened a new 
 world to me. 
 
 " And now I am going to tell you something that 
 I feel you will laugh at. Sometimes, to my amaze- 
 ment, after reciting some passage from one of these 
 plays, I seem to hear a faint clapping of hands along 
 the long picture gallery outside. Once when I 
 seemed to hear this sound I sprang to the door and 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 61 
 
 opened it, when I thought I heard the noise of 
 feet running down the gallery and thought I saw 
 the shadow of a figure pass before the moonlit 
 window^s. 
 
 " But of course this all came from the vanity of 
 the would-be actress. 
 
 " Afterwards, when the night wears on, my com- 
 panions of the drama are fully replaced by com- 
 panions still more beloved, my ancestors in the 
 panels in the pictures fixed in the walls. I often 
 take up my candle and walk along the gallery and 
 talk to each one to whom I give a story of my own 
 imagining. Owing to the teaching of my dear 
 mother, I do not know what superstitious fears are, 
 although I have read about them in books. I feel 
 that my ancestors' spirits are my protectors. I 
 really think that if I felt a hand upon my shoulder, 
 and on turning round saw the old crusader gazing 
 at me, I should not be the least afraid, I should smile 
 in his face ; now and again, when a sound does make 
 my heart beat more loudly, it is a sound which I 
 associate with flesh and blood. It is a sound which 
 might come from an invader of the burglar kind. 
 This is why I always take to my bedroom at night 
 the double-barrelled gun charged with duck-shot, 
 with which I used to be such an adept in the shoot- 
 ing days with my father. 
 
 " Sometimes some well-meaning person, generally 
 a woman from Thornton, will come up across the 
 pleasaunce and rap at the door, impelled thereto 
 by a good-natured impulse towards a young girl 
 leading, as they think, such a dreary life, even with 
 Mrs. Jordan to keep her company, as they suppose 
 
62 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 to be the ease ; but I do not eourt such invasions, 
 and lately they have almost entirely ceased. 
 
 " But how I am running on I Pray don't take 
 the trouble to read all this letter, but read the little 
 bits that seem interesting, and forgive the garrulity 
 of your grateful friend, Violet Vesprie." 
 
 It will now be seen how entirely the luck of the 
 Vespries that haunted the Towers made Violet feel 
 under absolute protection, and caused her to have 
 no fear in living alone. 
 
 The postman's visits were rare indeed, and when 
 they did take place they agitated Violet beyond 
 measure. Except the letter from Mr. Brandon, 
 they were always addressed to her dead father, of 
 whose death the correspondent did not know. 
 
 To Violet's mind the postman was always 
 associated with that dreadful news about Lawrence's 
 death. 
 
 One morning the postman brought a letter from 
 Mr. Brandon, with the London post-mark on it, 
 saying that he was in England, and looked forward 
 to the pleasure of calling upon Violet on the 
 following day. 
 
 This was delightful news for Violet, for she had 
 frequently called to mind the benevolent ogre, and 
 felt sure that he had been befriending her for years 
 by allowing her to remain in the Towers. 
 
 Shortly after breakfast on the following morning 
 there was a ring at the bell, and she ran through the 
 passages and opened the door, and there was the 
 ogre standing looking at her, but without speaking 
 a word. He was dazzled and overawed at the 
 splendour of the girl's beauty. 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 68 
 
 She shook him warmly by the hand and led him 
 into the room where she had been breakfasting. 
 " How — how very kind of you, Mr. Brandon, to 
 come and see me ! Ever since receiving your 
 letter yesterday I have had but one thought — 
 youy 
 
 Mr. Brandon sat down and looked at her, still 
 unable to speak. WTien he could converse with her 
 he told her he had reached Thornton overnight and 
 was staying at the " George " Hotel. 
 
 " When I got your letter," said Brandon, " I 
 could not rest until I had come to see you. The 
 good spirits in which your letter was written could 
 not blind me to the fact that you were leading a 
 solitary life such as no young lady ought to lead, 
 and I came to offer you whatever services are in my 
 power to render you." 
 
 "You are a dear, kind friend," said Violet; 
 " but really I feel, in a general way, far from lonely." 
 
 " Most extraordinary," said Brandon; " but do 
 you never suffer from depression ? " 
 
 "Sometimes," said Violet; "reminiscences of 
 my bereavements do become too strong for me, and 
 then I feel very, very sad. But it passes." 
 
 " But it is inconceivable. Miss Vesprie, that you 
 should have been able to live alone like this. Were 
 you not afraid ? Did nothing at all occur to try 
 your nerves ? " 
 
 "Very rarely," said Violet; "and yet strange 
 things have occurred." 
 
 " Strange things ? You did not tell me of them 
 in your letter." 
 
 " Well, I could not without offering you some 
 
64 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 explanation ; and I really had none to offer, except 
 one which I thought you would not believe in." 
 
 " Pray tell me," said Brandon. 
 
 " Well, it occurred for the first time on the second 
 anniversary of my brother Lawrence's death. I 
 chanced to go into his room to recall the happy 
 hours that I had spent with him in childhood. To 
 my amazement I found spread open upon the table 
 my brother Lawrence's copy of the famous plan of 
 our great-great-grandfather's for restoring Vesprie 
 Towers. When I had last seen it it was rolled up, 
 and stood in a corner of the room. I felt far too 
 well assured of the accuracy of my own memory to 
 doubt this. I stood rooted to the spot, gazing as 
 Robinson Crusoe gazed at the footmarks on the 
 sand ! " 
 
 " Certainly a most wonderful thing ! And very 
 startling. What could it mean ? " 
 
 And Brandon shuddered visibly, for — sharing the 
 Moravian doctrine of the inborn total depravity of 
 human nature — all sorts of dreadful ideas of men 
 getting into the place came upon him. 
 
 " What could it mean indeed ? " said Violet. 
 " That is what I asked myself. I could find no 
 other explanation than this — that Lawrie's spirit 
 had returned and joined the spirits of our own 
 ancestors in the Towers." 
 
 " Well," said Brandon, "that is at least a more 
 Christian idea than that of the water-fairies of 
 which your mind was so full as a child ! But it is a 
 very strange and puzzling affair." 
 
 " You smile rather doubtingly," said Violet. 
 
 " No, indeed 1 I was really thinking," said Bran- 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 65 
 
 don, " of the cruel way in which I have left you to 
 live alone in this old place ! But you must leave 
 it. It is not fit for you to live alone like this." 
 
 " Leave Vesprie Towers ! Not until I am turned 
 out by you, Mr. Brandon." 
 
 " And that you will never be ! But pray go on 
 with this story of yours." 
 
 " I went to my bedroom and threw myself upon 
 the bed and sobbed bitterly, moaning ' Lawrie dead 
 — Lawrie dead ! ' Then I started up suddenly, for 
 it seemed to me that the words were repeated in the 
 passage in a voice that sobbed like my own, 
 ' Lawrie dead — Lawrie dead ! ' But on going to the 
 door and looking down the corridor I saw nothing." 
 
 " Well, Miss Vesprie, if you will not leave the 
 Towers we must find some nice female companion 
 for you, or even several. We will initiate in the 
 old building what we Moravians call a ' choir,' and 
 you shall be a leader of it ; anyhow you must not and 
 shall not live alone surrounded by these creations 
 of your fancy ; for surely they are nothing else, 
 Miss Vesprie ! But pray go on with this strange 
 story." 
 
 " But they were not creations of my fancy, Mr. 
 Brandon ! On the following morning," said Violet, 
 " when I went down to the kitchen I was amazed 
 to find a bright fire burning and the kettle boiling. 
 The strange sight startled me even more than the 
 plan on the table had done. Had not somebody 
 got into the house, I thought, and if the house had 
 been entered — for what purpose ? Then for the 
 first time I did feel frightened." 
 
 " I should think so indeed ! Why you must have 
 
66 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 nerves of iron," said Brandon. " It — it makes me 
 shudder to think of your Uving here subject to a 
 thousand perils." 
 
 " But my courage soon returned," said Violet, 
 " and I went upstairs and fetched my gun, and then 
 explored every inch of the building. Not a soul was 
 to be seen. I returned to the kitchen, and as my 
 fears had not dulled my appetite I prepared my 
 breakfast. You may well imagine that the strange 
 occurrence of the morning was on my mind during 
 the day, and at night I felt my nerves to be a little 
 less strong than usual. I did not take my usual 
 ramble through the gallery, and when I went 
 upstairs I certainly looked over my shoulder more 
 than once. And when I did get into bed I sprang 
 into it, and kept the candle burning for some 
 time afterwards . ' ' 
 
 " I am quite sure I would not have dared to go 
 to bed at all," said Brandon, laughing. 
 
 " I soon fell asleep," said Violet. " But after a 
 while I was awakened by a noise in the passage 
 outside the door. Then I heard a soft rap on the 
 door ; I struck a light and cried out, * Who's there 
 — what do you want ? ' My cry was answered by 
 words that I could only partly follow, but I made 
 out the words, ' Lawrence — Lawrence I ' and then 
 the words, ' Don't be afraid.' My fears vanished 
 in a moment and I cried out, ' Yes, dear Lawrie, I 
 know — I know I You have come back to watch 
 over me. It was you that laid the plan on the table ; 
 it was you that lit the fire ! ' And then I fell asleep." 
 "What a wonderful young lady you are," said 
 Brandon, looking at her with a sort of adoration in 
 
VIOLET'S FRIEND 67 
 
 his eyes. " You really amaze me. But go on — 
 pray tell me all. I am deeply interested." 
 
 " On going downstairs next morning," said 
 Violet, " I found the fire burning as before, and the 
 kettle boiling. During the day I found other things 
 that Lawrence used to do, done for me. I found 
 my boots cleaned, but not put in the place where I 
 used to find them when Lawrence was alive. The 
 potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables that would 
 be wanted for the day, I found in the pantry." 
 
 " ^Miat a very practical spirit," murmured 
 Brandon to himself. ' But I don't like it — I'm 
 alarmed. And now what explanation of these 
 wonders have you found for yourself ? " he said to 
 Violet; "is it a supernatural one, or a human one? " 
 
 " Well," said Violet, " you must not press me too 
 closely on that point ; but the only human explana- 
 tion that ever occurred to me was that some friend 
 of the good soul who used to live with me, I mean 
 Mrs. Jordan, until she had to go to London, 
 sympathised with my lonely condition and kept 
 furtive watch over me." 
 
 " And yet that explanation does not quite satisfy 
 me." 
 
 Violet then began to tell him many other inci- 
 dents in her extraordinary life, led on to do so by 
 Brandon's questions. At every pause in the talk 
 the worthy man tried to summon up courage to tell 
 her what was the purport of his visit, and failed. 
 How could he say to this radiant creature, and 
 representative of all that was patrician, that he 
 wished her to accept him as an adoj^ted father ? 
 And without this bold proposition how could he 
 
 F 2 
 
68 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 offer her assistance of a pecuniary kind ? In order 
 to gain time he asked her to take him over the 
 building, and show him all the pictures again. 
 He thought by doing this they would be brought 
 into closer touch with each other, and he might 
 perhaps then summon courage to do what he wanted 
 to do. 
 
 Violet sprang up, delighted to be show-woman 
 again. And away they went along the corridor and 
 from room to room. Every now and then an oppor- 
 tunity would seem to present itself to him. But 
 in spite of all his efforts he could never seize it. 
 No, he must get away to his room at the " George " 
 and think matters over. 
 
 Violet was leading him towards the room where 
 the famous Robin Hood pictures were, but Brandon 
 wished to be alone to consider his course of action, 
 and told her it was time for him to leave and return 
 to his hotel at Thornton. He felt too much agitated 
 indeed to prolong the interview further. So he rose, 
 bade her " Good-day," and asked her if he might call 
 upon her next morning, and see the Robin Hood 
 panels. 
 
 " My dear — dear friend ! I shall be all impatience 
 until I see you again," said Violet, as she grasped 
 his hand warmly in her own. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE slasher's SON 
 
 When Mr. Brandon got to the " George " Hotel 
 his mind was so full of the incidents of the morning 
 that he did but scant justice to the capital luncheon 
 which the waiter set before him. And when the 
 lunch was over, and all the afternoon and during 
 his solitary dinner, and all the evening, his mind 
 was occupied with Violet Vesprie. 
 
 There had sprung up within his breast a passion 
 of love such as is difficult to understand and difficult 
 to define. 
 
 Philoprogenitiveness was its basis ; and yet no 
 father could have loved his daughter in exactly the 
 same way as Brandon loved Violet. In a certain 
 sense it was parental love, but it was a sublimation 
 of this love. It was something as if a mortal parent 
 had found himself the father of a goddess, and stood 
 abashed at the discovery. 
 
 " I shall go to her at once," said he. " Yes, I will 
 go and ask her to let me take the place of her father. 
 I will tell her all my antecedents — I will let her see 
 what a presumptuous thing it is for me to ask her to 
 bless a man in my position in the way that she can 
 bless me, and I will endow her with every farthing 
 that is mine. As to such few relatives as I have. 
 
70 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 what are they to me ? A few legacies of a thousand 
 each will fully satisfy them. I will fulfil her dream ! 
 I will restore Vesprie Towers exactly as it was 
 before it was despoiled. The very thought of it 
 makes me a young man again. I have now an 
 object in life." 
 
 But no sooner had he come to this determination 
 than he stood appalled at the presumption of the 
 idea of his asking her to accept him as an adopted 
 father. For the worthy man's prosperity had never 
 enabled him to accept himself as anything more 
 than the shopkeeper of Eastcheap. 
 
 He had married a wife of consumptive tendencies 
 who had brought him two consumptive daughters. 
 And when he learnt from medical authority that 
 they must all be banished from England, and live 
 in Madeira, he had sold his business and migrated 
 to Funchal with them. All his solicitude for them, 
 however, had been of no avail. In three years he 
 was left a widower and childless. 
 
 It was shortly after these bereavements that he 
 had come to England on business connected with 
 his mortgages ; and it was then that he saw Violet 
 as a child. This indeed is one of the explanations 
 of the extraordinary way in which Violet had 
 attracted him. When he, on that occasion, 
 returned to London and saw his solicitors, Messrs. 
 Walton and Walton, and made inquiries about the 
 Vesprie family, his solicitors had dwelt with great 
 eloquence upon the pride and almost grotesque 
 ancestor worship of the penniless Vespries. 
 
 A less modest man than Mr. Brandon might have 
 succeeded in devising some plan for fulfilling his 
 
THE SLASHER'S SON 71 
 
 new-born desire to benefit the family of the sweet 
 child who had so fascinated him. But like so 
 few of the nouvcaux riches, he felt that the 
 unpardonable sin was presumption. He came 
 to the conclusion that the only way in which he 
 could be of substantial use to the family would 
 be by allowing them to remain at the Towers, 
 and leaving them to pay rent — or not to pay it — 
 according to their ability. If the Vespries had not 
 been the great family he knew them to be, and 
 if he himself had been less conscious of his own 
 humble origin, he w^ould have made some effort to 
 assist them in a more open and effective way ; but 
 he had shrunk from it. Nothing could make him 
 listen to his solicitors' urgent remonstrances as to 
 the loss of income caused by the neglect of the 
 Vesprie property. 
 
 And so time went on ; and now and again an 
 eligible offer would be made for Vesprie Towers and 
 the grounds, and the deer park, or for Vesprie 
 Towers and the grounds alone ; but to the vexation 
 and astonishment of the solicitors, he refused every 
 offer. The lovely child who acted as cicerone to 
 him when he went over the Towers and grounds 
 lived in his memory like a beautiful picture ; and 
 often and often, when he sat alone in his house at 
 Funchal, mourning the loss of his wife and children, 
 he would feel the grasp of the child's fingers that 
 pulled him along towards the mere to see the 
 mirrored rainbow. 
 
 When he got the news of Vesprie' s death he 
 lacked the courage to do w^hat he longed to do — to 
 make an offer to this young lady of pecuniary 
 
72 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 assistance. All that he had dared to do he had done 
 in hinting that he would act as her friend if she ever 
 needed one. 
 
 But now, while he sat lingering over his breakfast, 
 no sooner had he made up his mind that he would in 
 the morning tell Violet what he wanted to tell her 
 than another set of thoughts came up to disturb 
 him. 
 
 One of the chief points in the Moravian creed 
 was the heinousness of pride — one of the 
 cardinal sins; and it was impossible to converse 
 with Violet Vesprie without being struck by her 
 indomitable pride, a pride which no poverty and 
 no disaster seemed to quell. Would it be right for 
 him to give this unregenerate one the wealth 
 that had been accumulated by the humble toil 
 of his father-in-law, the Cheapside tradesman, and 
 himself ? 
 
 He knew that it had been the fervent wish of his 
 dead wife that his wealth — the nucleus of which had 
 come through her — should, in the event of his being 
 left childless, go to the great missionary cause of the 
 Moravian Church. He knew, moreover, that all 
 the Moravians of England, Germany and America, 
 fully believed — upon his own word — that this would 
 be the destination of his property. Those who 
 know nothing of the Moravians would find it 
 difficult to realise how strong is the zeal in that 
 estimable community. When, in 1732, their first 
 mission was planted in the West Indies, the noble 
 enthusiasts who went there expressed their resolve 
 to become slaves themselves, if it were necessary, 
 in order to carry out their grand purpose. It was 
 
THE SLASHER'S SON 73 
 
 they who turned Greenland from a heathen country. 
 For hours Brandon thought over these things. 
 He pictured to himself Lionel Dover, and David 
 Nitschmann, going out to St. Thomas, determined 
 to wear the gyves of slavery themselves rather than 
 leave the slaves without the light of the gospel. 
 He contrasted their self-abnegation with his own 
 self-indulgence, and his soul was so disturbed that, 
 even now and then as he lay in his bed, he would 
 utter a moan. Sleep came at last ; and when he 
 awoke his first thought was, not of Lionel Dover and 
 David Nitschmann, but of Violet Vesprie. 
 
 Spread upon the breakfast table was a newspaper 
 damp from the press, and smelling of printer's ink. 
 It was the Thornton Gazette, published that morning. 
 He turned it over listlessly, for he knew how belated 
 is news in papers of that kind. Soon his eye was 
 arrested by a poem signed " Martin Redwood," and 
 he began to read it. The poem was called the 
 " Rose of Nature." It declared that in this 
 universe where even Nature, so beautiful and so 
 beloved, is a mere unconscious, unloving mother, 
 — woman is the only poem. She is the last expres- 
 sion of Nature's dream of beauty, and when 
 civilisation is understood she will take the place 
 that she took in old Egypt as the lady and queen of 
 man. For, owing to what are called the very 
 weaknesses of woman, she is in closer touch with 
 moral beauty, and in closer touch wdth the spiritual 
 world, than man. 
 
 " Ah," said Brandon, " it seems as though 
 Providence had ordained that this poem should 
 be set before me to-day ! By fostering woman we 
 
74 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 benefit the entire human race, and prepare for the 
 millennium." 
 
 He rose and left his breakfast and went out and 
 strolled through the Vesprie meadows that bordered 
 the deer park. It was much too early for him to 
 call on Violet, and he wandered about trying to 
 screw up his courage to open the project to her of 
 which his mind was so full. In the corner of a 
 turnip field he came suddenly upon an old shepherd 
 who bade him "Good morning," but with an 
 expression of great curiosity on his face. 
 
 Brandon got talking with him, and was soon 
 earnestly listening to what the old shepherd had to 
 say about Vesprie Towers and the extraordinary 
 young lady who lived in the haunted mansion. 
 
 " But I know summut about she as nobody else 
 don't know nothink about," said the man. 
 
 " Why, what do you mean? " said Brandon. 
 
 " There's some rum goin's on in the Towers, / 
 can tell you — some rum goin's on ! What I've 
 see'd I've see'd. T-ain't a-goin' to pass my lips, 
 for Mrs. Vesprie was a good kind o' woman, an' I 
 ain't a-goin' to say nothink about her darter's 
 goin's on. But / know what I know ! " 
 
 Brandon was determined in some way or another 
 to get from the old man what he had to say ; and 
 had soon opened the old man's lips by the sight of 
 half a sovereign. 
 
 " Well," said he, " there's a young chap as lives 
 in Thornton as used to be very friendly like with 
 Muster Lawrie Vesprie, an' a very clever chap he is, 
 too ! He writes things in the Thornton Gazette^ 
 an' I think it's right down wonderful for a chap as 
 
THE SLASHER'S SON 75 
 
 is the son o' the Stratford Slasher 1 Well, one 
 morning, very early, when I got up to get mush- 
 rooms in the park, summut made me go an' give 
 a look at the old Towers where the young gal lives 
 all alone. An' what do you think I sees ? I sees 
 that young chap — Martin Redwood by name " 
 
 " Martin Redwood ? " 
 
 " Aye, Martin Redwood — I sees him a-slippin' 
 out o' one o' the kitchen winders. An' then I sees 
 his shadow follow along the wall and out o' sight ! 
 — ah, that gives you a sturt, sir ? " 
 
 For a moment Brandon stood aghast ; for, being 
 a Moravian, he believed implicitly in the depravity 
 in human nature, especially in sexual relations. 
 But then the glorious vision of Violet came into his 
 eyes, and he was half-ashamed of the creed in w^hich 
 he had been born. And then another thought 
 came to him, as he recalled Violet's story of the 
 mysterious person that tended her unseen. 
 
 " I must know this young man who is so devoted 
 to her," he said to himself. " But it is wrong — 
 very wrong I I must surround her by a choir of 
 young Moravian women." 
 
 " It guv me a turn too, sir, you may think ! You 
 might ha' knocked me down with a feather when I 
 seed that sight ! " continued the man; "an' I told 
 my missus, an' she sez, ' Jabez,' sez she, ' we'll both 
 on us get up to-morrow morning afore sunrise an' 
 we'll watch.' An' I sez, ' No ! No woman shall 
 watch along o' me ! / ain't no sneak, an' if you go 
 an' tell anybody I shall jist drop you one ! ' An' I 
 went next morning by mysel', an' lo an' behold, 
 there was jist the same game a-goin' on ! An' I sez, 
 
76 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 ' Fancy a Vesprie comin' to that — fancy a Vesprie 
 a-takin' up with the Stratford Slasher's son ! ' " 
 
 " And you never told anybody of this ? " said 
 Brandon. 
 
 " No, only you." 
 
 " Well, look here," said Brandon, " I'll give you 
 another half-sovereign if you'll promise me never 
 to tell anybody, and keep your wife from telling 
 anybody." 
 
 But in truth, unknown to the shepherd, another 
 person had been a witness to all that he had been 
 telling Brandon. This person was Martin's mother. 
 During all the time Joan Redwood had kept a 
 watchful eye on her son. Yes, she had found out 
 all about his infatuation — his worship of Violet — 
 not from any words that had fallen from Martin's 
 lips, but from the expression on his face and from 
 his daily course of life. With the rapid power of 
 induction, which her intense affection for her son 
 had given her, she came to the conclusion that he 
 had fallen hopelessly in love with this daughter of 
 the Vespries. But she carefully kept from him the 
 fact that she knew his secret. She was far too 
 sagacious to dream for a moment that her opposi- 
 tion to this attachment would have any effect upon 
 it, save indeed fanning the flame. All she could 
 do was to lavish her own affection upon him, and 
 at the same time to keep before his eyes the story 
 of the wrongs that her own family had suffered 
 from the Vespries in the days of long ago. 
 
 One night, when she lay awake, thinking over 
 this complication, she heard the door of her son's 
 
THE SLASHER'S SON 77 
 
 room open, and then she heard his footsteps as he 
 crept down the stairs. 
 
 She at once connected this incident with Violet 
 Vesprie, who, she knew, was Hving alone. She 
 leapt out of bed and dressed herself hastily, and 
 when she heard him unlock and unbolt the cottage 
 door, and go out, she felt sure he was going to the 
 Towers, and she followed him. It was a light 
 night, and she was able to keep him in view at a 
 considerable distance. She saw him steal across 
 the kitchen garden and gently lift the sash of the 
 kitchen window and enter the place. Then she 
 returned to the cottage, and leaving the door as 
 her son had left it, crept into bed. 
 
 From the very first she had a glimmering sense 
 of the meaning of her son's extraordinary action. 
 
 " He know^s she is alone, and he is turning himself 
 into a watch- dog to guard over her ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 A MORNING WITH THE MORTGAGEE 
 
 When Brandon left the old shepherd he walked 
 in deep meditation towards the Towers. When he 
 reached the pleasaunce he found Violet moving 
 about and attending to some flowers. She looked 
 grander than ever, Brandon thought, though she 
 was only dressed in a plain morning dress, with a 
 hat of the Gainsborough kind. Her delight at 
 seeing him was so genuine that his courage rose, and 
 he felt sure that he would be able to approach the 
 subject next to his heart. 
 
 "I promised you," said she, "to show you the 
 famous Robin Hood pictures, and to tell you the 
 story, and I am all impatience to begin my task." 
 
 And the two went in at the front door. As they 
 passed through the corridor Brandon stopped 
 before a picture of a gentleman with a hawk on his 
 wrist. 
 
 " I need not ask whether the Vespries in the 
 hawking times were famous for their falconry. 
 This is made clear enough by the panel pictures." 
 
 " Yes," said Violet; " an unusual number of the 
 Vespries have been painted as you see, with hawks 
 on their wrists, and some of their hawks were of 
 those superior varieties of the falconry Jwhich only 
 certain families were allowed to possess." 
 
A MORNING WITH THE MORTGAGEE 79 
 
 She said this with entire unconsciousness of what 
 it impHed ; but it cowed poor Mr. Brandon more 
 than if she had dwelt upon the wide gulf fixed 
 between her family and his own. 
 
 He asked her about one picture of a very striking 
 nature. This was a panel portrait, she told him, of 
 a Vesprie who was intimate with James the First. 
 They now passed into the large room, where 
 Violet, as a child, had previously shown him the 
 panel pictures relating to the outlaws. This had 
 evidently been a very important room. On the 
 walls there were pictures in various stages of pre- 
 servation. The marks of damp upon some of 
 them showed that the rain through the damaged 
 windows — now paned with modern panes of glass 
 — had for some time beaten. 
 
 One of the outlaw pictures, which Violet had 
 especially brought him to see, was a quaint picture 
 divided into two parts, one part representing a 
 hawking scene. It was filled with ladies and 
 gentlemen dressed in antique costumes, with 
 falcons on the wrists, and with all the equipments 
 for an important hawking party. They were 
 divided into three groups. In the centre of one 
 was a richly dressed young lady surrounded by a 
 few friends and retainers. Among these was a tall 
 man-at-arms who seemed to be very much on the 
 alert. In the centre of another group, surrounded 
 also by a few friends and retainers, was a gentleman 
 who was looking somewhat askant across a field at a 
 third and far larger group, the centre figure of which 
 wore a sinister expression on his face and was 
 whispering to a man riding by his side. It showed 
 
80 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 pretty clearly that a conspiracy was afoot in the 
 larger group to molest the lady, and that those in 
 the smaller group were unconscious of it, except 
 the tall man-at-arms. 
 
 The second part of the panel was divided off 
 from the first by an enormous spreading tree, and 
 behind this tree were grouped a large number of 
 men and women, dressed in green, bearing bows. 
 These were watching, through an opening between 
 the leaves, the hawkers, and were evidently waiting 
 in readiness to attack the larger party. The 
 pictures, though sadly defective in perspective, told 
 their story admirably. 
 
 " AVhat is the story ? " said Brandon. 
 
 Violet went up to the picture and said, " They 
 are going to kidnap that lady, and the famous 
 outlaws are going to rescue her. That lady," con- 
 tinued Violet, " is a famous member of the Vesprie 
 family." And then, pointing to the gentleman in 
 the smaller group, " That is one of her lovers — 
 lover number one." Then pointing to the gentle- 
 man in the larger group, " That is one of her lovers 
 — lover number two ; and he has invited the lady 
 to the hawking party in order to kidnap her, and 
 take her to his castle ! " 
 
 Then turning to the other part of the picture she 
 said, " There is Little John, and there is Friar 
 Tuck, and there are all the famous outlaws, some 
 of them gypsies, ready to pull their arrows on the 
 traitor lover as soon as he makes a move ! " 
 
 They then passed on to the other pictures, and 
 all the while Brandon's mind was only partly 
 occupied by observing them, for he was seeking an 
 
A MORNING WITH THE MORTGAGEE 81 
 
 opportunity to broach the subject of which he was 
 so full. It occurred to him now that the easiest 
 way to do this would be to ask Violet to take him 
 for a walk across the deer park to the mere, as she 
 did as a child. By recalling the incidents from that 
 previous walk, he thought he might broach the 
 subject. Violet was delighted at the prospect of 
 doing this, and they sallied out together, walking 
 over the pleasaunce, and through the deer park. 
 
 When they reached a famous tree called the 
 " Imp Tree," Violet, observing that her companion 
 did not walk with a very elastic step, sat down upon 
 the bole of the tree, and invited him to sit down by 
 her side. And then she chatted on so sweetly and 
 so musically that the simple-minded Moravian was 
 fairly bewitched. Never before had he so yielded 
 to the charms of woman. After a while they rose 
 and walked towards the backwater where Violet's 
 boat lay moored. 
 
 "This is your boat, I suppose?" said Brandon. 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, looking at it with loving eyes 
 as though it were a conscious thing. " W^ould j^ou 
 let me row you in it a few minutes ? I should so 
 love to row you up the backwater to the river." 
 
 Brandon consented, and they both stepped into 
 the boat, and Violet skilfully, by a stroke or two 
 of the sculls, began to pull it up the backwater 
 towards the river. 
 
 Brandon sat in a pleasant kind of dream as the 
 boat sped smoothly along. The sensation was as 
 delightful as it was new, to see himself borne along 
 by the skill and strength of this lovely young 
 creature. And if at that moment they had left the 
 
82 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 boat, and he had left the Towers, and had returned 
 to London, it is a certainty that Vesprie Towers 
 and all its belongings would have gone — not to the 
 Moravian missionary cause, but to Violet Vesprie. 
 
 When they reached the end of the backwater, and 
 the boat swept round the corner behind the osier 
 ait, Violet stopped and asked Brandon to Hsten to 
 the singing of the birds. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 
 
 At the very moment when Brandon and Violet 
 paused to Hsten to the birds, Martin Redwood 
 chanced to be seated in the osier ait at his mother's 
 side, concealed from Violet by a thick willow tree. 
 It was not until it was too late for them to move 
 away that the sound of the sculls and then of the 
 two voices fell upon their ears. The effect upon 
 Martin, as his mother w^as not slow to observe, w^as 
 startling ; Violet's voice he had often heard, when 
 she was reciting her dramatic scenes. But the only 
 time he had ever heard it in colloquy with himself 
 was on that night when it came through the door 
 panel in response to his own words about Lawrie. 
 By stooping forward he could see the two occupants 
 of the skiff through the foliage. There was Violet, 
 lovelier than ever, in that becoming hat, and blue- 
 striped morning dress which showed every line of 
 her matchless figure ; there she was, sitting in her 
 boat, an elderly gentleman at the stern, looking 
 with deep benevolence and affection at the beautiful 
 creature. Martin Redwood knew him, from the 
 gossip at the " George " Hotel that morning, to 
 be the mortgagee of Vesprie Towers. 
 
 Every word they spoke fell upon the young man's 
 ear with merciless distinctness ; for Violet's voice 
 
84 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 chained him as if by magic to the spot. It is doubt- 
 ful whether he would have had the strength to move 
 away under the spell of that music. So far from 
 feeling any curiosity or desire to know what the two 
 were talking about, he would fain have listened to 
 the speech merely, without being able to follow the 
 words. But what he heard concerned him so deeply 
 that it changed the current of his life and warped 
 his very nature. 
 
 More for the purpose of finding some subject 
 for conversation than anything else, Brandon 
 said, " Those pictures in which Robin Hood 
 appears are very interesting. Did you say that 
 the lady who figures in the pictures was an 
 ancestress of yours ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, " she was one of the 
 Nottinghamshire family, and she brought, I believe, 
 a large Nottinghamshire estate to the Vespries. 
 But that — like the rest — is gone. There is a 
 strange story in connection with her." 
 
 " What is that ? " 
 
 " She was the object, it is said, of an extra- 
 ordinary passion on the part of one of her own men- 
 at-arms, who afterwards became an outlaw. In 
 order to understand fully the pictures it is necessary 
 to understand something of that story. It is called 
 * Robin Hood's Rescue.' Shall I tell it to you ? " 
 
 " It would be very kind of you to do so," said 
 Brandon. 
 
 " Well," said Violet, " it seems that the hand of 
 the Nottinghamshire heiress was sought by two 
 rivals, Nottinghamshire nobles — an honest lover 
 named Wayland and a villain named Giles de Ray. 
 
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 85 
 
 Lord Giles formed a villainous plan to kidnap the 
 lady at a hawking party, and carry her off to his 
 castle, which adjoined Lord Wayland's domain. 
 The plot was discovered during the hawking by 
 the enamoured man-at-arms — Ralph. And Ralph 
 whispered to the lady that he wanted particularly 
 to speak to her on a very important matter ; and 
 he proposed that he should slip away to a certain 
 glade that she knew well, and aw^ait her there. 
 
 "The lady having become aware of the presump- 
 tion of the man-at-arms, at first refused to listen to 
 the proposition, but eventually, being struck by the 
 expression of earnestness on the man's face, she 
 reluctantly yielded and went to the place indicated, 
 where Ralph was already aw^aiting her, and where 
 they were out of sight of the hawking party. 
 Ralph told her of Giles de Ray's plot against her, 
 and urged her at once to ride off accompanied by 
 himself as her protector to her own castle. She, 
 it seems, cherished a sort of preference for De Ray, 
 although the other suitor, Wayland, was a good and 
 w^orthy gentleman. Besides, she had suspicions of 
 the good faith of Ralph. She refused to believe 
 his story, and grew very angry that the charge had 
 been made. She raised her riding whip and said 
 if he repeated the story she would strike him. 
 Ralph did repeat it, and she struck him violently 
 across the face. At the same moment the traitor 
 knight, De Ray, entered the glade wdth his followers 
 and captured both the lady and Ralph. They tied 
 Ralph to a tree, and things would have fared 
 very ill with them, but Robin Hood and his merry 
 men rushed upon the scene, overpowered De Ray 
 
86 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 and his retainers, and carried the lady in triumph 
 to her castle." 
 
 " A very interesting story," said Brandon. 
 " But the person that interests me more is the 
 faithful man-at-arms, Ralph, who loved the lady. I 
 wonder what became of him ? Did he return to 
 the lady's service after such an outrage ? " 
 
 " Outrage ! " said Violet. " That is surely too 
 strong a word, considering the man's offence. You 
 forget the presumption of a man of that class falling 
 in love with a lady of her class. However, the 
 story goes that he angrily resented the whipping 
 and joined the outlaws." 
 
 " And what is said to have been the end of him, 
 poor fellow ? " said Brandon. 
 
 " Well, I think he was executed at Nottingham 
 for some depredation he had committed in his 
 adventures with Robin Hood." 
 
 During this story, Mrs. Redwood watched her 
 son's face intently, and noticed that he frequently 
 changed colour. 
 
 And what was its effect upon Brandon ? He sat 
 in grave silence looking straight before him. Never 
 before had he fully realised the power of the idea 
 of caste over the best natures. This exquisite girl 
 whom he adored had spoken of the most sacred 
 emotion in the human breast with disdain and 
 contempt. And why ? Because a man had had 
 the presumption to fall in love with a woman of 
 superior rank to his own ! The poor elder's heart 
 sank within him. How could he dare to make the 
 attempt to bridge over the gulf between himself 
 and her ? 
 
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 87 
 
 Brandon, apparently in order to turn the con- 
 versation into some more interesting channel, said 
 to Violet, " You call that strange tree that you 
 showed me in the park the old Imp Tree ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Violet ; " Lawrence took the deepest 
 interest in it." 
 
 The name of her brother Lawrence recalled to 
 Brandon's mind what the old shepherd told him 
 about Lawrence Vesprie and his friend Martin Red- 
 wood, and he said, " In coming to you this morning 
 I got into talk with an old shepherd who mentioned 
 to me this brother of yours whom you have lost, 
 and also mentioned an intimate friend of his." 
 
 " An intimate friend ? " said Violet meditatively. 
 " Lawrie had no intimate friend, except myself." 
 Then she continued with a start, " Ah ! I remem- 
 ber now. There was a Thornton lad with whom 
 he became acquainted. But one could scarcely 
 call him Lawrie' s intimate friend ! " 
 
 " Then you did not know this young acquaint- 
 ance of your brother's ? " 
 
 " No, I never saw him." 
 
 " Never saw him ? " 
 
 " Never, as far as I can recollect," said Violet. 
 " Lawrie often wanted to introduce the young man 
 to me, but of course I refused ! " 
 
 " Then there was something against his character, 
 I suppose ? " said Brandon. 
 
 " Nothing that I ever heard of," said Violet. 
 
 But of course it was impossible for me to know 
 him." 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand you," said 
 Brandon. 
 
88 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " What I mean, Mr. Brandon, is that I could not 
 possibly have any Thornton lad introduced to me. 
 But, besides this, he was one of the lowest of the 
 low — a mere gutter-bird, to use the strong expres- 
 sion of my dear old nurse, who, to be sure, has a 
 great prejudice against the young man's family." 
 
 " Is every person of low origin a gutter-bird ? " 
 said Brandon. " These are strange views, if you 
 will allow me to say it, for a Christian young lady 
 to have of English people of whatever class." 
 
 " He is the son of a notorious pugilist," said 
 Violet; "the greatest blackguard, they say, that 
 ever lived in Thornton." 
 
 Mrs. Redwood's fingers suddenly tightened on her 
 son's arm until he nearly cried out with the pain. 
 
 " But I was not inquiring about the father," 
 said Brandon ; " but about the young man — ^your 
 brother's friend, or acquaintance." 
 
 " My father considered my views to be peculiarly 
 broad for — for " 
 
 " For a Vesprie," said Brandon. 
 
 " Well, I suppose I was going to say that," said 
 Violet ; " but even I must draw the line somewhere. 
 This man's father is not only a pugilist ; he belongs 
 — so they say — to the lowest of the low. I used 
 often to remind Lawrie of this. But he was quite 
 infatuated about the young man. He used to say 
 ' The young fellow can't help having been born in 
 the gutter, Vi ! And besides, to me, cottagers 
 and tradesmen are pretty well of the same class. 
 What's the difference ? If it comes to that, I'd 
 rather associate with a cottager than a trades- 
 man.' " 
 
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 89 
 
 " And do you take these views ? " said Brandon. 
 
 '' Certainly I do ! I like cottagers — in their 
 place," said Violet. 
 
 Brandon stared straight before him, and he saw 
 pictures of Moravian stations in Greenland, in 
 Lapland, and in the tropics. 
 
 " My brother stood up strongly for this friend, 
 and he used to say ' Martin Redwood is a very 
 good fellow, Vi ! He is well educated, better 
 than we are, I can tell you. And he can write 
 poetry ; some verses once fell out of his pocket. 
 I saw them. And his manners are good. And 
 after all, you know, Vi, he's of the same flesh and 
 blood as we are.' " 
 
 " And what did you say in answer to this view 
 of your brother's ? You look as though you didn't 
 agree with him." 
 
 " Well," said Violet, " there is such a thing as 
 race. Look at the difference there is between one 
 horse and another." 
 
 " Certainly there is," said Brandon, in a far- 
 away tone. 
 
 " WTiy," said Violet, " I can tell how much blood 
 there is in a horse by a glance at his quarters and 
 shoulders. And so could Lawrie. He would have 
 made his fortune as a horse-dealer." 
 
 " But then, after all," said Brandon, " you don't 
 look upon men and women exactly in that way, do 
 you ? " 
 
 Violet smiled and said, " It was through Lawrie's 
 admiration of prize-fighting that he thought so much 
 of his friend. And I wouldn't have objected to 
 meeting him," Violet continued, "if he kept his 
 
90 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 proper place. I have, as I've told you, , a real 
 liking for the cottager, and as a child used to love to 
 get out and join their games until father forbade 
 it. But I couldn't meet this young man as Lawrie's 
 friend and mine ! A Vesprie can only make friends 
 with gentlemen." 
 
 " And what did your brother say in answer to 
 this ? " said Brandon, in a tone which to a 
 less single-minded girl would have betrayed his 
 feelings. 
 
 " Well, Lawrie said, ' You don't suppose I 
 would have associated with a Thornton boy if he 
 hadn't been a son of the Stratford Slasher ? When 
 I think of that, it makes me forget he's not a 
 gentleman I ' But," said she abruptly, " let's talk 
 about something else." She then turned the boat 
 round and rowed up the backwater. 
 
 Violet sat perfectly motionless and silent in the 
 boat, and the worthy Moravian sat and watched 
 the changes on her face. 
 
 Brandon, after a while, in order to break the 
 awkward silence, reminded her of what she told him 
 as a child about her dream in the oaken chair. 
 
 " Do you remember, Miss Vesprie, that during 
 that delightful day when you acted as cicerone over 
 the Towers, you told me about a remarkable dream 
 that was exercising your mind very much ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," said Violet, " but the still more 
 remarkable thing is this : that every now and then 
 the dream recurs, but in each case the dream-figure 
 seems to grow with my growth and to age with my 
 age." 
 
 " Most remarkable," said Brandon. " Will you 
 
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 91 
 
 tell me again about that dream you had last ? " 
 said he. " Or rather, tell me the words of the 
 dream ? " 
 
 " The words," said Violet, " were, ' I am the 
 Vesprie luck — the good luck of the Vespries and 
 my own bad luck 1 ' But surely it means nothing ; 
 and I scarcely know why I told you about it." 
 
 The vision of the Home for destitute girls rose 
 once more before him and reproached him. He felt 
 that this vision of Violet had a mysterious meaning, 
 and for some time he remained silent. 
 
 "And now," said Brandon, "I must bid you 
 farewell." 
 
 " Farewell ! " said Violet. " Why I have scarcely 
 seen you. This is a great disappointment. And 
 I have been looking forward to seeing you for so 
 long." 
 
 As she spoke Brandon perceived that her eyes 
 were filling with tears, and he was on the point of 
 saying to her, " Let us turn back to the Towers, 
 and I will postpone my return." But the idea of 
 the girl's indomitable worldly pride and the picture 
 of the Greenland Mission House, the English Herrn- 
 hut that he was to build and the vision of the 
 Home for destitute girls came before him and he 
 said, " I am expected in London to-night, and the 
 train I must catch is the twelve-forty train." 
 
 She grasped his hand and said, " But you will 
 come back to see me, Mr. Brandon ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Brandon, as he moved away, 
 " if I may." 
 
 " If you may ? " said Violet. " \Miy you are 
 the only friend I have in the world — the only one." 
 
92 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Miss Vesprie," said he, " you really must not 
 live alone any longer, and you really must let me 
 send you two worthy friends of mine who will be 
 delighted to serve you in every way until I am able 
 to return and see you again." And raising his hat 
 he passed behind the trees and she saw him no more. 
 
 After the little boat containing Brandon and 
 Violet had turned the corner, and passed out of 
 sight, Martin Redwood gazed into his mother's 
 face. His eyes looked as luminous as ever, but his 
 features looked five or six vears older. His mother 
 perceived that there were positively incipient lines 
 of age upon his cheeks and at the corners of his 
 eyes. A great tragedy of the soul was going on 
 within. 
 
 It was that struggle of the soul which does not 
 know whether the fires in which it is being burnt 
 are the fires of love or the fires of hate — 
 
 " To be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain." 
 
 He felt that he could have slain the proud girl whom 
 he had been loving so deeply, and then have slain 
 himself. His love of the patrician idea vanished 
 like lightning. If at that moment a revolution had 
 been going on in England, if there had been a 
 rising of the lower orders, plebeian against patrician, 
 similar to that of the great French Revolution, he 
 would have joined it, he would have leapt into the 
 front ranks with a yell of hate, and then struck 
 right and left at aristocracy with merciless blood- 
 thirstiness. The pride of the poet, ten thousand 
 
AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION 93 
 
 times greater than the pride of the patrician, had 
 been lacerated by the fangs of aristocracy, and he 
 yearned to see all the patrician idea incarnated in 
 one, and the neck of that one on the block of the 
 guillotine. And all this on account of a young girl's 
 heedless words ! 
 
 Intense as had been his love of Violet Vesprie, 
 his new-born feeling towards her — was it hatred or 
 what ? — was more intense still. 
 
 His mother perceived that he was a different man 
 from what he had been a few minutes before, and 
 she did not speak a word, but left him to his 
 thoughts. 
 
 This incident opened a new chapter in his life. 
 
 Upon most natures such an experience would 
 have worked a marked effect, but Martin Redwood 
 was an idealist, he was a poet. Yes, that was the 
 fantastic fate of this unlucky young man. He was 
 the son of a blackguard prize-fighter. He could 
 not disguise from himself that he had inherited from 
 the blackguard father a magnificent physique, a 
 rare beauty in which the elements of the Celt and 
 the Saxon were combined ; and from his mother he 
 had inherited an intelligence and an intellectual 
 agility as rare. As to his poetic genius, if we could 
 say whence that came we could answer many 
 another question ; we could understand the mys- 
 tery of Chatterton's genius, and Shelley's and 
 Keats', and, more mysterious still, Shakespeare's. 
 Unfortunately for the patrician Shelley, his soul 
 was in no way akin to those who were called his kin ; 
 and it was the same with the plebeian Martin Red- 
 wood, nor was he akin to any of those with whom 
 
94 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 he had been brought into contact. His soul was 
 filled with dreams of beauty of which they had no 
 notion. It was attuned to all that is noblest in 
 this universe, and therefore it was he that belonged 
 to Nature's own aristocracy — far more than the 
 Vespries who thought so much of themselves. 
 
 From the moment of first seeing Violet in Vesprie 
 Park, in the old days when he and Lawrence Vesprie 
 were close friends, all the poetry of his nature had 
 been focussed upon one object, the beautiful, 
 graceful, high-born representative of the great 
 Vesprie family. It was she who inspired that poem 
 of his upon woman which had so much attracted 
 Brandon's attention at the " George " Hotel. 
 
 Now came this terrible revelation of Violet's 
 feelings about him, and from that moment it 
 darkened his entire life. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 NOTICE TO QUIT 
 
 And now fresh changes, fresh calamities, were 
 in store for Violet Vesprie. 
 
 One spring morning, when she was in the midst 
 of her duties, Violet was startled by a rap at the 
 door which she knew came from neither the 
 butcher's boy, the baker's boy, the milkman's 
 boy, nor the postman. She went and opened 
 the door, and was confronted by a short, thick-set 
 gentleman with high features but flabby cheeks. 
 
 " I am Miss Vesprie," said Violet, pulling herself 
 up and looking straight at him. 
 
 " Miss Vesprie," said the gentleman, raising his 
 hat, " you've been in charge of the place for a long 
 time — have you not ? " 
 
 As Violet did not move from her position or 
 invite him to come in, he said, " I'm the solicitor, 
 Mr. Walton, acting for the heir-at-law, and all the 
 beneficiaries of the late Mr. Brandon, and the entire 
 estate is to be put up to auction. I am extremely 
 sorry for you, especially as there can be no doubt 
 whatever that it had been Mr. Brandon's intention 
 to leave a large legacy to you. Scraps of paper were 
 found putting it beyond all question, but unfor- 
 tunately he was a procrastinator, and he was arrested 
 
96 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 by death before he had embodied his intention in a 
 formally executed will." 
 
 " Mr. Brandon dead ? Oh, is he dead ? Is that 
 kind, good man dead ? " 
 
 And a look of sorrow spread over Violet's faee. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Vesprie, he is dead." 
 
 Mr. Waltonlthen informed Violet that Mr. Brandon 
 had died suddenly in a fit of apoplexy, and in- 
 testate. Certain disputes had consequently arisen 
 among the next of kin and the heir-at-law, and 
 these, the gentleman then told her, were being 
 adjusted by himself. 
 
 Unselfish as Violet was and disinterested as was 
 her affection for Brandon, it had been impossible 
 for her to recall the extraordinary interest the good 
 man had shown in her without sometimes thinking 
 that, if the Vesprie luck should ever come to her at 
 all, it would be connected with this kind friend. 
 
 She stood in dismay at the news of his death, and 
 for the first time in her life felt really alone. Still 
 the idea of the Vesprie luck was not to be uprooted 
 all at once. 
 
 " Don't you know," she said, " that the Vesprie 
 estate cannot be sold ? It belongs to my family 
 after the mortgage is paid off. And though I am 
 alone now," she added with a quiver of the lip, " I 
 am a Vesprie, and it cannot be sold away from me. 
 They tried to sell it before, and it can't be sold." 
 
 " Can't be sold ? " said the lawyer, looking at her 
 wistfully. 
 
 " No ; my dear father told me so on his death-bed. 
 And although my brother is dead, who was to have 
 
NOTICE TO QUIT 97 
 
 paid the money, there is still the luck — luck- 
 
 Here her fortitude gave way, and although she did 
 not sob — she was too proud for that — the tears 
 trickled down her cheeks. 
 
 " The house cannot be sold," she continued, 
 making way for him as he entered the hall. 
 
 " Yes ; I am sorry to say it can," said the lawyer, 
 evidently softened by Violet's sorrow, " and every- 
 thing in it, as far as I know." 
 
 " Evervthinff in it ? " exclaimed Violet, and her 
 dismay seemed to affect the man. " But you don't 
 mean that the furniture, the pictures, and the panels 
 are to be sold ? " 
 
 " If I were acting for my own account I should 
 feel inclined to say no, Miss Vesprie. But I am 
 acting only as a solicitor, and my duty forces me to 
 say that everything must be sold, except any- 
 thing that belongs to yourself. But the law com- 
 pels me to act strictly in my legal capacity. It 
 would be cruel of me not to tell you the whole truth 
 at once, however painful it may be to you and to 
 me ! Vesprie Towers, the pictures and everything 
 in it, are to be sold by auction. The furniture will 
 be sold in the neighbourhood, the pictures will be 
 taken to London and sold at Christie's." 
 
 " A large proportion of things have been sold 
 already, and all that now remains inside the house 
 belongs to the Vesprie family," said Violet. 
 
 The stranger stood and looked at her for some 
 time. Then he said : 
 
 " Miss Vesprie, I am sorry to have to repeat to 
 you that nothing in this house belongs to you. It 
 belonged to the late Mr. Brandon, who lost a great 
 
98 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 deal of money on the mortgage of this estate. Mr. 
 Brandon, your benefactor, allowed your family to 
 live here rent free as caretakers — I beg pardon, 
 tenants at will, of everything that is here. If I, as 
 solicitor to the family, should find it in my power 
 to act with generosity, it is far from likely that 
 I should refuse to do so." 
 
 " Then of course I must leave here — leave at 
 once." 
 
 " I am sorry to say you must," said the lawyer. 
 " But the date of the sale is not fixed and there 
 will be ample time for you to make your arrange- 
 ments. I should be sorry indeed to put you to 
 unnecessary inconvenience." 
 " When must I leave ? " 
 " Oh, not for a month," said he. 
 "But," said Violet, " I promised my dear father 
 that I would never leave ! " 
 
 "I am very sorry to say it," said the lawyer; 
 " but I am quite powerless." 
 
 The gentleman then slowly moved along the hall, 
 examining the pictures as he went along. 
 
 Violet passed into the room where she was about 
 to lunch, and for the first time since Lawrie's death 
 wept bitterly. 
 
 After a while she heard the gentleman returning 
 along the passage to the front door. She dried her 
 tears at once. But she need not have done so. The 
 gentleman evidently shrank from a second encounter 
 with her, for he stopped at the open door at which 
 Violet stood and said, " Good-bye, Miss Vesprie. 
 I am sorry to bring you such bad news. But I 
 am quite powerless — powerless." And he walked 
 
NOTICE TO QUIT 99 
 
 away through the park and struck across towards 
 the mere, looking at everything as he went 
 along. 
 
 Violet sat looking out of the window across the 
 lawn, tears trickling down her cheeks, in a dream of 
 despair. At last she was alone indeed ; Vesprie 
 Towers had seemed to her to represent her father, 
 her mother, her brother. To be torn from that was 
 to be torn from them. 
 
 There are some readers of this book — they may 
 perhaps be few — who will realise without my attempt- 
 ing to describe them, the thoughts and emotions 
 that passed through Violet's mind as she sat looking 
 out of the window. All English people love the 
 word " home," and there is no song that they love 
 so well as " Home, sweet Home ; be it ever so humble 
 there is no place like home." 
 
 That is true. But the word *' home " to the 
 majority of people has a very different meaning 
 from what it had to Violet. Those who were not 
 born in the homes of their forefathers have no idea 
 of the word " home " to those whose earliest recol- 
 lections are associated with some old structure that 
 is connected with a long line of ancestors. To these 
 latter not only the trees and shrubs of the park 
 and grounds, but the structure itself — the very 
 stones with which it is built — seem endowed with a 
 conscious life. And who shall say that to the heir 
 of the old estate there is not a kind of magnetic 
 aura left in the old building and even in the beloved 
 grounds which sheds its mysterious influence upon 
 members of the family and none other ? 
 
 H2 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A LAST LOOK ROUND 
 
 The effect of that cruel experience of Martin 
 Redwood on the riverside grew more disastrous 
 every day, and it soon took a somewhat alarming 
 form. This sedate, poetic young sailor, instead of 
 joining his ship, lingered on at Thornton and began 
 to frequent one of the lower public-houses, the land- 
 lord of which, recently come from London, was 
 a socialist, and some said an anarchist. Martin 
 took to drinking, but only slowly and by degrees. 
 Drink seemed to make him forget the scorpion 
 sting that was maddening to him — seemed to give 
 respite and ease. 
 
 Something seemed to chain him to the neigh- 
 bourhood against his own will and he knew what it 
 was. It was his mad passion for Violet, and he 
 felt that he could not breathe in any other air but 
 that of Thornton. Sometimes he would undertake 
 some outdoor occupation, such as osier peeling, or 
 acting as beater to the local sportsmen. His good 
 manners seemed in some degree to leave him. Still 
 there was something in the young fellow's accent 
 that marked him off from the cottager and labourer. 
 
 Martin Redwood's mother became seriously con- 
 cerned, and set herself energetically to reclaim her 
 son from drink ; and when he was in a beerhouse, 
 
A LAST LOOK ROUND 101 
 
 to see her lingering outside in the bitterest weather, 
 waiting for him to come out, was a pathetic sight. 
 
 One evening after a painful scene with his mother, 
 in which she reminded him how drink had ruined 
 his father, a new resolution came to Martin. 
 
 He would go to sea. 
 
 On the sea he would escape from every associa- 
 tion that made his life miserable. 
 
 This was another sore trial for his poor mother, 
 but after much thinking over the matter she came to 
 the conclusion that it was far better for him to go. 
 
 For a long time Martin had seen nothing and 
 heard nothing about Violet Vesprie. But one day 
 when he was on the point of leaving Thornton to 
 join his ship he was startled by seeing a placard 
 at the foot of the bridge that connected Vesprie 
 village with the town of Thornton. 
 
 It ran thus : — 
 
 " Preliminary Announcement. 
 
 " Messrs. Sturgeon & Co., Leadenhall Street, beg to 
 announce that there will shortly be put up for sale at 
 Tokenhouse Yard, the magnificent estate, 'Vesprie 
 Towers,' in the county of Warwickshire, with the fine 
 grounds and large deer park, containing two hundred 
 acres. The property, situate mainly on the left bank 
 of the River Vesprie, is of the finest soil in England ; 
 the park, although neglected and used as cattle lays, 
 has not been in any degree injured. The timber has 
 never been cut, and the trees are entirely uninjured. 
 Immediate possession of the Towers and grounds can 
 be given, and the other parts of the estate are held 
 by respectable tenants under short leases. 
 
 " Further particulars, with the date of sale, will be 
 issued shortly. Apply to the auctioneers, or to Messrs. 
 
102 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Walton and Walton, Leadenhall Street, or to Mr. Rook, 
 estate agent, Thornton." 
 
 As the placard said that immediate possession 
 would be given, Martin took it for granted that 
 Violet Vesprie had already left the Towers. 
 
 He was deeply affected. 
 
 " I wonder what has become of her ? " said he. 
 " I wonder where she has gone, and what friends 
 are sheltering her ? Ah well ! She will never now 
 see the gutter-bird, the idea of personal contact with 
 whom made her shudder ! " 
 
 It is easy to understand why Martin and his 
 mother believed that the Towers were unoccupied. 
 The words "Immediate possession can be given," 
 which they had read on the placard at the end of 
 the bridge, had only the technical meaning familiar 
 to men of business. They meant that possession 
 would be given on the day of the completion of the 
 purchase. 
 
 Redwood knew the entire story of the good Mr. 
 Brandon, and he felt sure the owner must be dead 
 and that Violet was gone. 
 
 The irony of the situation was that Violet Vesprie 
 still occupied the Towers, although this was the last 
 day of grace given to her by the solicitor. 
 
 On this morning she awoke with a start and 
 exclaimed, " My last day — my last day of all ! He 
 told me I might stay for a month, and I have taken 
 him at his word indeed, for the month ends to-day ! " 
 
 Then came thoughts of a more practical kind. 
 
 Day by day the question had presented itself to 
 
A LAST LOOK ROUND 103 
 
 Violet, but she could never answer it, What was she 
 to do ? How was she to live ? The poverty of the 
 family had no doubt, in a certain sort of way, been 
 a peculiar education to her, considering her rank of 
 life. There were scores of things she could do 
 which young ladies in a different class of life 
 altogether could not do ; but then they were the 
 offices done by servants, and even these accom- 
 plishments she had only picked up in a haphazard 
 way. 
 
 She got up and made her little bed as before and 
 was soon busy preparing her last breakfast at the 
 Towers. 
 
 After this she went into the old stableyard to 
 feed the pigeons for the last time. When the birds 
 alighted upon her shoulders, and put their beaks 
 to her lips, she fairly broke down and began to sob. 
 She took a long stroll round the park and 
 grounds. The great rookery was so noisy and busy 
 that she found it impossible now to feel very 
 depressed. Never before had the cawing of the 
 birds seemed so loud. 
 
 Then she returned to the Towers and made a 
 substantial luncheon on cold viands that had been 
 left from the previous day. She took another 
 ramble round the old place, looking at everything 
 as through a mist. Then she strolled through the 
 garden and out into the park towards the mere. 
 
 She sauntered along the bank of the mere, 
 and then returned across the deer park towards the 
 bend in the backwater near the river and osier holt 
 where the skiff was moored, to give a last look at 
 this skiff which she had so often used. 
 
104 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 She then returned to the Towers, for she had given 
 herself but Kttle time to attend to the momentous 
 duties of packing up the few articles that she con- 
 sidered she was entitled to take with her. 
 
 Mr. Walton had told her that everything in the 
 place belonged to the representatives of Mr. 
 Brandon, and therefore to remove anything would 
 be stealing. She was too intelligent not to under- 
 stand that if her father owed the mortgagee more 
 money than the land and the park and the Towers 
 and its belongings were worth, everything must 
 belong to the mortgagee. She felt that her father's 
 death was, in a certain sense, her own. If, there- 
 fore, she were to remove anything belonging to the 
 owners of the estate it would be a slur upon the 
 family honour. 
 
 Such things as she felt must belong to her and her 
 family, the clothes that they had worn, she had missed 
 a long while back, during Mrs. Jordan's time ; and 
 when she asked the old servant what had become of 
 them, that good creature was obliged to confess that 
 she had, during the winter, sold them to buy 
 coals. 
 
 There was then only her own meagre stock of 
 clothes that she could honestly take away with her 
 — only these, and, of course, the rainbow topaz, 
 the luck of Vesprie Towers. 
 
 She went upstairs and turned out of the drawers 
 her stock of clothes and linen. The articles were 
 few indeed, and some of them much worn. She 
 selected the best of these clothes and the few 
 trinkets that had come to her through her mother, 
 and put them into an old box with '' V " cut upon 
 
A LAST LOOK ROUND 105 
 
 it, locked it, corded it up herself, and then she sat 
 down to think what she was going to do. 
 
 After a time a certain thought struck her so 
 forcibly that she suddenly jumped up, clasped her 
 hands and exclaimed, " Yes, that's what I will do — 
 that's what I will do ! I will go to-day." 
 
 She then took half a sheet of notepaper, wrote 
 upon it, " Miss Vesprie — Passenger to London," 
 and not being able to find any gum or paste in the 
 house stuck it on the box with white of egg. 
 
 She took her worn purse from her pocket to count 
 the money she had about her. It was the remains 
 of what the greengrocer had lately paid her for the 
 considerable quantity of vegetables taken away. 
 It amounted to five pounds and a few shillings. 
 
 " This will be ample," said she, " more than 
 ample ! " And her resolution had the effect of 
 most resolutions in such a dilemma, it made her 
 feel more cheerful. 
 
 The spirit of adventure had come, and she 
 thought of all the wonders that her father had told 
 her of the great world outside the Towers, especially 
 of London. 
 
 She then left the house and the grounds, walked 
 briskly across the old bridge and down the High 
 Street to the railway station. She was entirely 
 unknown to the porter to whom she addressed her- 
 self, but there was a stvle about her which com- 
 manded respect. 
 
 " I want you to come," said she, " to Vesprie 
 Towers to bring away a large box." 
 
 " Vesprie Towers ? I didn't know anybody 
 lived there — only the ghostses." 
 
106 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " / live there, and I am going to leave ; and I 
 want you to come and fetch my box." 
 
 " All right, miss," said the porter. " I'll bring 
 my truck along." 
 
 " Yes," said she, " and I will go back at once to 
 the Towers." 
 
 The porter was so long before he started for 
 the Towers that the afternoon train was gone 
 by the time he reached there, and Violet deter- 
 mined to let him take the luggage to the 
 station, but to wait before going herself until 
 the next day. 
 
 When the porter arrived with his truck he found 
 everything ready for him,. But when he understood 
 that she was not going till the next day he felt 
 inclined to linger and look about the mysterious 
 place of which he had heard so much gossip. And 
 no doubt he would have lingered, except for the 
 authoritative expression on the young lady's face. 
 
 Violet's mind had been so occupied that it was 
 evening before she realised how the time had passed. 
 
 So long as the light lasted she wandered about the 
 place, from passage to passage, from room to room. 
 And by the time she turned into bed she was 
 thoroughly weary, and soon fell into a sound sleep. 
 But not a dreamless one. The night was passed 
 in visions of Vesprie luck. 
 
 Next morning was occupied in another long 
 ramble round the grounds and the deer park. 
 When she reached the towpath beside the river, 
 she went along until she reached the bridge. 
 
 When she approached the bridge it seemed to 
 her that the weekly market was taking place on 
 
A LAST LOOK ROUND 107 
 
 the other side ; and she thought, as she had 
 much time on her hands, that she would hkc to 
 give it a last look. 
 
 From the great osier island she had often and 
 often enjoyed the sight of the market on the oppo- 
 site bank. She went upon the island and looked 
 across the river. 
 
 Sprinkled over the grass of the osier holt the 
 white-peeled rods glistened in the sun. The stumps 
 from which they had been stripped looked a little 
 forlorn. The air was filled with the aroma shed by 
 the newly peeled-off bark. 
 
 Whilst Violet was lost in this spectacle, which 
 seemed like a dream, she was startled by hearing 
 voices behind her, and upon looking round was a 
 little dismayed at seeing a party of cottagers, whom 
 she knew at once to be osier peelers, passing on to 
 the ait by the narrow isthmus by which she herself 
 had passed. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE ROD-PEELERS 
 
 It so chanced that this was the day of the 
 annual osier feast which took place at the end of 
 the osier season ; and Martin Redwood and his 
 mother had promised to attend. 
 
 The time of the osier-peeling depended of course on 
 the forwardness or the backwardness of the season. 
 For some reason or another the cottagers during the 
 osier-peeling were more boisterous than at other 
 seasons — hay-making, for instance, or harvest work ; 
 and at the close of the day there were certain 
 sports into which they would press anybody who 
 approached the islet. This place, which was not 
 really an islet, but a queerly-shaped peninsula, very 
 long and narrow, was probably a mudbank 
 originally. At the end of the osier-peeling season 
 there was a ceremony which, although there was 
 nothing in it that could be called improper, was 
 specially rough and boisterous, and this was called 
 rod-kissing. 
 
 At the conclusion of the rod-peeling season it is 
 the custom of the rod-peelers to have a feast, of 
 which the rod-kissing game was the principal 
 feature. 
 
 During the entire osier season a few of the finest 
 of the osier rods are picked out and set apart for 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 109 
 
 the game. At the end of the season a certain 
 number of these are bound up into a fagot — that 
 is to say, half as many willow wands as the number 
 of the osier-peelers present are so bound up that no 
 one can distinguish the two ends which belong to 
 the same wand. 
 
 On the day of the conclusion of the rod-peeling, 
 the rod-peelers are arranged in two rows as in a 
 country dance. They then draw up to the fagot 
 and surround it, each man taking one end of the 
 wand, each woman the other end, without knowing 
 who will be his or her actual vis-d-vis. And when 
 everything is quite ready the withes binding the 
 various little fagots are cut by the ganger, and 
 then it is of course found that one end of a given 
 rod is grasped by a woman, the other by a man ; 
 and the fun of the thing lies in this : the rods in 
 the fagots are so craftily arranged that no peeler 
 has any means of knowing who is grasping the 
 other end of his or her rod until the withes are 
 cut. The rod-peelers then again spread themselves 
 out in double lines, each couple grasping a rod. It 
 is then the law of the game that each woman is 
 expected to advance towards the man, drawing her 
 hand along the rod, and then on reaching him to 
 kiss him. Should any one of the women, on dis- 
 covering that her vis-d-vis is objectionable to her, 
 refuse to do this, the man is disgraced and buffeted 
 by the other women out of the company, and some- 
 times ducked in the river. The insult of being 
 ejected in this way is so great that men have been 
 known to mope for a year under it. 
 
 This custom is akin to an old harvest custom in 
 
110 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Servia and Central Europe. The song which the 
 Servian peasantry sing or chant during the game 
 is thus rendered by Sir John Bowring in his 
 " Servian Popular Poetry," 1827 : 
 
 " Harvest Song. 
 
 '' Take hold of your reeds, youths and maidens ! and see 
 Who the kissers and kiss'd of the reapers shall be. 
 Take hold of your reeds, till the secret be told, 
 If the old shall kiss young, and the young shall kiss 
 
 old. 
 Take hold of your reeds, youths and maidens ! and see 
 What fortune and chance to the drawers decree ; 
 And if any refuse, may God smite them — may they 
 Be cursed by Paraskev, the saint of to-day ! 
 Now loosen your hands — now loosen, and see 
 Who the kissers and kiss'd of the reapers shall be." 
 
 But it is not, I believe, common in England, in 
 the harvest field or the osier ait, except in the 
 locality in which this story is laid — a locality far 
 removed from what may be called the osier counties, 
 and possessing indeed only one osier ait within a 
 radius of many miles. 
 
 If it chance that the number of the men and 
 women are not equal, the rod-peelers can claim the 
 right to seize upon the nearest bystanders or 
 passers-by, no matter what rank of life ; and in 
 such a case the bystander who refuses to be pressed 
 is dragged to the ranks by main force. 
 
 The rod-peelers, who had all gone home to clean 
 themselves up and dress themselves, were now 
 returning and were busy preparing for the ceremony. 
 
 At first they did not perceive Violet owing to the 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 111 
 
 clump of willows between them and herself, as 
 they proceeded with their preparations for this 
 peculiar ceremony, connected with the end of the 
 rod-peeling season, before described, a ceremony 
 which Violet had never witnessed. 
 
 Evidently there was a hitch in the proceedings 
 of the rod-peelers, for one said, " But he'll be here 
 directly. He promised to come, and then there'll 
 be a man too much." 
 
 The rod-peelers were evidently fearful that there 
 would be a fiasco on the arrival of a man expected, 
 when some female passing by would have to be 
 pressed into the service according to the venerable 
 custom before alluded to. 
 
 At this moment one of the women perceived 
 Violet, and set up a whoop of triumph, exclaiming, 
 " Why, there's a gal a-standin' lookin' across the 
 river ! She'll do." 
 
 " Don't let us be rough," said another young 
 woman, named Liz Curtis, a pretty, flighty girl 
 who lived with her grandmother; "I'll go and ax 
 her to come. And I dussay she will." 
 
 " You dussay she will ? " said another. " She 
 must. She'll have to be pressed if she don't come 
 willin' ! " 
 
 Liz went up to Violet, saying, " Good a'ternoon, 
 miss! I see you're a stranger, miss — don't the 
 meadows look nice across the river ? " 
 
 " Very," said Violet, civilly, pleased that she 
 had not been recognised. But when Violet glanced 
 across the ait, and saw what looked very like 
 preparations for a country dance, she perceived 
 that she was in danger. Her courage, however, rose 
 
112 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 with the occasion, and a defiant look spread over 
 her face. 
 
 " This is our osier feast," said Liz. " We can't 
 make up the number o' women by one." 
 
 Violet suddenly remembered how Lawrie had 
 told her about a certain rod-kissing game on the 
 osier ait, and how the osier-peelers claimed the 
 right to press passers-by into the affair, if circum- 
 stances required, and she was seized with an 
 involuntary fit of laughter. This was misunder- 
 stood by the women, and it now became evident 
 to Violet that she was about to be pressed herself 
 into the ceremony. 
 
 " We can't get on with the game 'cos we've got 
 one too many," said Liz. 
 
 " What have I to do with you and your osier 
 feast?" said Violet. "Let one of the men drop 
 away. At least leave me alone ! " 
 
 " That's just where it is. Which on 'em is to 
 drop away ? An' the man as drops away will have 
 bad luck for a year. An' there'll be a fight over it 
 yet. Oh, it's only jist the osier-peelers a-standin' 
 in two rows opposite each other," she added. 
 
 She was careful not to mention the kissing part 
 of the ceremony lest the stranger should refuse to 
 join the game. 
 
 '' Will you be so kind ? " said the girl. 
 
 "So kind?" said Violet; "so kind as to do 
 
 what ? " 
 
 " As to come and stand beside o' me at the osier 
 feast. It's only for a minute." 
 
 Violet shook her head as a sign of denial. The 
 girl began to importune her. 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 113 
 
 Violet liked cottagers in a patronising sort of way 
 as we already know, but to be kissed by one of them 
 was more than she could submit to. But at this 
 moment she saw the only sight that would have 
 unnerved her. There stood the dread foe — Joan 
 Redwood. There was something about her so 
 different in look and bearing from that of the 
 other cottagers. 
 
 Two or three of the girls came up and asked her 
 to stand in the row, and she thought it would be 
 better to stand up with a good grace rather than 
 submit to force, as she knew she would have to do. 
 But she determined that she would not submit to 
 the final indignity. And she walked over to the 
 osier-peelers, taking her place among the w^omen 
 with the rest. 
 
 As she did so the missing man came on the ait, 
 looked in amazement at her and then took his 
 place opposite her. He evidently for some reason 
 disguised himself as much as he could by pulling 
 his sailor's cap over his brow. 
 
 The man and woman at the further end of the 
 pile soon ended their part of the matter. The 
 woman passed her hand along the rod, moved 
 towards the man, kissed him on the forehead, and 
 seemed to enjoy it. So with the second, and so with 
 the third pair. But in the fourth pair was an 
 elderly w^oman named " Meg," a favourite in the 
 neighbourhood, the man opposite to her being 
 a splendid young gypsy, dressed in the tip-top of 
 gypsy fashion, who had come from an encampment 
 some distance off. 
 
 As soon as the man saw Meg move towards him 
 
 V.T. ^ 
 
114 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 he gave a start and shrank. The woman's eyes 
 were ht up at once with a luminous twinkle and she 
 said, " Yis, a gypsy chap may well feel a little 
 awk'ard at bein' kissed by a Christian woman ; but 
 Meg ain't so proud as you think, my bor. She's 
 never kissed a yallar-skinned gypsy afore in all her 
 life. But Meg ain't a party to sp'ile a good game 
 jist for a little pride. So here's for you." And 
 she sprang forward, clasped the man in her arms so 
 tightly that he gasped for want of breath, and then 
 she gave him a smack on the lips like the sound of 
 a pistol-shot. 
 
 Released from Meg's tremendous grip the man 
 instinctively rubbed the back of his hand across his 
 mouth to wipe away the kiss. 
 
 " Ah, I know'd he'd want another. Fust time 
 he was kissed by a Christian woman, I warrant." 
 And in a moment the man was again pinioned in 
 Meg's arms and another smack sounded along the 
 island. 
 
 " Now," she said, " If you want another, wipe 
 this off, an' I'll give you a third 1 " 
 
 This remark was followed by peals of laughter 
 from the rod-peelers and others on the ait. 
 
 The attention of all was so centred on Meg and 
 her victim that the other kissing went on without 
 attracting much notice, until the turn came for 
 Mrs. Redwood, who stood about midway. 
 
 There was something in her appearance that 
 made the yokel opposite to her pause before kissing 
 her, but he eventually performed the ceremony, 
 though with evident nervousness. 
 
 When it was perceived that at one end of the rod 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 115 
 
 stood "the stranger," and at the other Martin 
 Redwood, there was a dead silence. Mrs. Redwood 
 now stood still as a statue, gazing at her son. 
 
 It would take a stronger pen than this of mine to 
 record the warring emotions in the breast of this 
 remarkable woman. Her hatred of the Vespries 
 had been roused by the knowledge that her son was 
 madly in love with the last of the race. But the 
 triumph she felt at the dilemma in which Violet 
 was placed was dashed by the thought that if she 
 did yield to the custom and kissed her son, this 
 might only increase his mad passion for her ; and 
 then came the dread that if she refused her son 
 would be the laughing-stock of the place, and lose 
 the self-respect he had gained and lapse into 
 the drinking habits. This last thought was too 
 much for her ; anything would be better than 
 that. She must force the girl to comply with the 
 custom. 
 
 An expression of sad intensity overspread her 
 face, for she was only too well aware of Martin's 
 passion for Violet and the mischief it had worked 
 upon his life. 
 
 Martin stood motionless, looking down the file of 
 rod-peelers. 
 
 Violet, who had never, as far as she knew, seen 
 him before, and therefore did not know who he 
 was, stood for a moment and looked at him with a 
 curious amused smile on her lips that had nothing 
 in it of sarcasm and a great deal of humour, and 
 slowly dropped the rod. Martin did the same, and 
 bent his eyes on the ground. 
 
 At this there was a shout of derision against the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 young sailor. " He must be ducked — he must be 
 ducked ! " cried several voices. 
 
 " I am sorry for that poor chap," said Liz. 
 " It'll be bad for him." 
 
 " Why ? " said Violet. 
 
 " 'Cos he'll be the butt of everyone in Thornton 
 for the next twelve months. He's the great 
 scollard, they say, and used to try an' be the fine 
 gentleman. But o' course it can't be helped — o' 
 course you can't kiss him, miss I " 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Redwood stalked up to her 
 son and stood between him and Violet. Turning 
 to Violet, she said, " Why can't you do as the others 
 do ? You stood up in the game and you knew 
 what the game was." 
 
 " Leave her alone, mother," said Martin in an 
 authoritative tone. 
 
 Violet remained silent, and this irritated the 
 woman. Then she said, " I was told that I should 
 be spared this part of the game." 
 
 " That's true ; I did tell her," said Liz. 
 
 " That don't signify. It's the old custom," said 
 many voices ; " and she's been pressed, and she 
 must go through with it." 
 
 " Will you leave her alone ? " repeated Martin, 
 glancing about him, and in a voice that was now 
 angry. 
 
 Martin's last words had a strong effect on the rod- 
 peelers, who, not knowing Violet by sight, felt that 
 a slight was being put upon them all by a fellow 
 plebeian. 
 
 A British plebeian, however low down in the 
 scale, will placidly accept every kind of pretension 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 117 
 
 of superiority if the person that makes it is evidently 
 and indubitably an aristocrat. But this has to 
 be manifest and unchallengeable, and especially 
 declared by the person's dress. It is a very diffe- 
 rent ease, however, if the person's aristocratic 
 domineering rights of insolence are at all con- 
 testable. 
 
 Violet looked into the face of Liz, beside her, in a 
 somewhat reproachful way which made the girl call 
 out defiantly, 
 
 " I told her that she'd only got to stand up. An' 
 don't you be so rude to her — don't you be rude to 
 her. It ain't a bit likely she's goin' to kiss a rod- 
 peeler and a chap she don't know ! " 
 
 " I'll throw every man into the river, one after 
 the other of you, if he dares to insult her ! " said 
 Martin fiercely. 
 
 " Dang him, he could do it too ! " said another, the 
 shepherd whom Brandon had talked to, "if he 
 liked. He's about as strong as the Slasher himself, 
 and he's got a devil of a temper of his own too, / 
 know!" 
 
 Violet's courage now rose even against Joan 
 Redwood. Then she said, 
 
 " Let the man come and kiss me if he dare. I 
 will not submit to it ! " 
 
 " Why don't she follow the rules o' the game ? " 
 said Joan. " She'll make my poor boy go to the 
 bad again. He got over the drink through my 
 seeing after him." 
 
 Turning to his mother, Martin said in a hoarse 
 whisper, " It's Miss Vesprie." 
 
 " I know all about that. An' that's the more 
 
118 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 reason why she should follow the rules o' the game," 
 she answered. Then softening her tone, she said, 
 turning to Violet, "An' though you don't know it, 
 / do — he has worshipped you — worshipped the very 
 ground you tread on." 
 
 " Me ! " murmured Violet ; " I never saw him 
 in my life ! And even now I can hardly see his face, 
 which he is hiding away from us." 
 
 " But he's seen you often enough," said Mrs. 
 Redwood. " He has been giving all his life to you 
 without your knowing it." 
 
 " My good woman," said Violet. " I can't 
 imagine what you mean. You must surely be out 
 of your mind ! " 
 
 " Who was it," said Mrs. Redwood, " that used 
 to light your fires in the morning, an' clean your 
 shoes, an' bring the cabbages in, just to save you a 
 little work ? " 
 
 Violet looked in the woman's face in blank 
 amazement. 
 
 " Yes, 'cos you used to live alone in the great 
 house. He never slept in the cottage once, but he 
 would go creeping up to the great house, and slept 
 in the kitchen all among the blackbeetles, just to 
 protect you from burglars ! " 
 
 " Will you stop that, mother ? " said Martin. 
 " Will you stop all that and let her go ? Will you 
 stop it, mother ? Or must I make you ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Redwood still continued with added 
 volubility, " And who was it broke the poor boy's 
 heart and made him turn to drink ? It was you ! 
 He heard you on the osier holt talking to some of 
 your fine friends. Yes, everybody says my boy 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS ii9 
 
 was a very respectable boy, an' fond o' book learn- 
 ing and everything that was good, until you soured 
 him and spoilt him with your fine lady talk ! And 
 now you're too proud to follow the rules o' the 
 game. But you'll have to do it ! A Vesprie will 
 have to go up to a Redwood and kiss him. You 
 can't escape." 
 
 These words seemed to have an extraordinary 
 effect upon Violet, and she muttered, " Lawrie's 
 friend, it's Lawrie's faithful friend, and a friend to 
 me in my loneliness ! " 
 
 " And he'll be laughed at by everybody," con- 
 tinued Mrs. Redwood. " He was getting a little 
 better, and getting off the fretting about you. And 
 now he'll go to the bad, if you treat him like a dog. 
 They'll all be makin' fun of him, and he'll go to the 
 bad." 
 
 The girl looked thoughtfully at Mrs. Redwood 
 and murmured, " Lawrie's friend ! " 
 
 The rod-peelers were now silenced by expectancy. 
 There was now not a sound on the osier ait, 
 except the twittering of the reed-sparrows and the 
 " Chee'p-chee'p," of the moorhens. 
 
 Martin went up and seized his mother's wrist, 
 and pulled her back, " Stop it ! " said he. " If 
 she had come up to kiss me I would not have let her 
 — not I ! I would not have let those proud lips 
 of hers touch my face if I knew it." 
 
 " But she shall — she shall ! " said Joan. " ^Yhy 
 shouldn't she ? You're as good as she. There 
 ain't a finer chap in all Thornton, though I say it 
 as your mother. And then look at your book 
 learning." 
 
120 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Mother," said Martin, " I should be sorry to do 
 it, but if you say another word I shall have to be 
 rough with you ; I shall take you and swing you 
 off the ait. Yes, you've been a good mother to me, 
 and I used to be a bad son ; but if you say another 
 word I shall have to be rough with you." 
 
 " \^Tiy can't she do as the others do, an' save you 
 from being the laughing-stock of all Thornton ? 
 If there's anybody that ought not to break the 
 rules o' the game, and do as the others do, it's this 
 fine lady whose nasty sneers made my boy go 
 wrong." 
 
 Murmuring the word, " Lawrence ! " Violet took 
 up the rod from the grass and went towards Martin 
 and held it out. But Martin refused to take it, 
 and stood there motionless. 
 
 Violet stepped up to him, lifted his cap and 
 put her hand upon his hair, and kissed him on the 
 forehead. Then Martin turned up his face towards 
 Violet and gazed at her. She stood and looked at 
 him as though transfixed and murmured, " The 
 eyes are the same as the eyes that came to me in my 
 dream — the Vesprie luck ! Oh, what can it mean ? 
 Forgive me," said she, " for Lawrie's sake." 
 
 A shudder seemed to pass through Martin's 
 frame. He shrank from her and turned away. 
 
 There rose from the osier-peelers a great shout of 
 applause. Peal after peal of huzzas rang out. And 
 then cries of " She's the right sort — no stuck-up 
 nonsense about she, though she be a Vesprie ! " 
 
 Violet wended her way back to the dear old 
 home. 
 
THE ROD-PEELERS 121 
 
 " I will return to the Towers and sleep there for 
 the night, and go to London in the morning." 
 
 Not caring to return by way of Thornton Bridge, 
 she determined to walk on to Broadwood Bridge, a 
 distance of about two miles, and so reach the park 
 by the footpath which led through the wood called 
 Broadwood and the Broadwood estate, which 
 formerly belonged to her own ancestor. 
 Every pathway was familiar to her. 
 The path she took skirted the old ruined tower. 
 She stopped and looked at it. 
 
 " How singular," she cried, " that I did not come 
 this morning to bid farewell to the old ruin ! " 
 And she felt quite glad of her forgetfulness about 
 the key of the Towers which had resulted in her 
 making this final visit, for it gave her an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing the old place. 
 
 She lingered about the ruins, recalling incident 
 after incident with Lawrie which had taken place 
 there. Then she climbed up the broken stone stair- 
 case, and reached the room that Lawrence had 
 furnished. There, on the railed dais were the 
 chair and table and even the rug upon which 
 they used to sit and tell their visions of the 
 Vesprie luck. 
 
 The spell of this room was so great that she 
 forgot the passage of time. She took from her bag 
 some of the buns and biscuits that she had bought 
 at the little shop at Broadwood and proceeded to 
 make her evening meal. When she left the ruins 
 she lingered by the Imp Tree. 
 
 By the time she approached the Towers the 
 evening had died into twilight, but there was a 
 
122 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 bright moon which lit up the wood in a magical 
 way. 
 
 To Violet the very voices of the birds had a 
 timbre richer and rarer than to any other ear : to 
 her indeed the nightingale was the very same 
 bird whose song had been listened to by her 
 forbears — yes, even by Hugh the Crusader and 
 Gertrude. She was a sufficiently good ornitholo- 
 gist to know that they were certainly descendants 
 of the nightingales that had warbled to genera- 
 tions of Vespries. She was familiar with the con- 
 servative habits and instincts of the nightingale. 
 She knew that it will build its nest in the very 
 same tree that it has inhabited all its musical 
 little life — the same tree in which its ancestors had 
 built and sung for ages — and that it will not leave 
 its beloved tree, howsoever inviting the young trees 
 around have grown to be. 
 
 She knew that this applied to all the other birds, 
 and indeed to every wild thing in Vesprie Park and 
 grounds. 
 
 But while these thoughts were occupying her 
 mind, a sound broke upon her ear which made her 
 clap her hands with delight and exclaim, 
 
 " When the cuckoo sings at night 
 Vesprie luck is shining bright." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A MOONLIGHT VISION 
 
 After that painful scene with the rod-peelers 
 on the osier ait, Martin Redwood was racked with 
 a sense of conflicting passions in which love and 
 deadly anger strove with each other. 
 
 That night he wandered across Vesprie Park, 
 knowing not whither he went, so much was he 
 absorbed in his thoughts. The moon had risen 
 over the Towers. With a start of surprise he 
 found himself standing before the entrance door. 
 
 For a long time he stood before the building look- 
 ing at it. "It is not love," said he; "it is not 
 that, it cannot be. It shall not be that ! " 
 
 He went to the front door and rapped two or 
 three times, but on trying the handle of the door it 
 was to his surprise unlocked. He opened the door 
 and stood looking down the vast picture-panelled 
 hall. 
 
 He stood so long on the threshold that the 
 sparrows evidently lost all fear of him, for they 
 fluttered outside close to his feet. 
 
 " Are you greeting the gutter-bird ? " he mur- 
 mured to the sparrows. " Or do you really take me 
 to be one of the Vespries ? The family he belongs 
 to is the lowest of the low — whose very flesh is of 
 
124 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 so common a mould that a patrician girl shudders 
 at the idea of touching it, and can only do so under 
 compulsion. The pariah of pariahs in a country 
 which has won every kind of freedom for itself save 
 one — freedom from the tyrant caste — enters this 
 house just left by the last of the Vespries ! The 
 son of a pugilist 1 What would Violet Vesprie say 
 if she were to see me standing here ? And what 
 should I do if she came upon me now ? What 
 should I do ? Should I be fool enough to let my 
 hatred of the proud class, of which she is the 
 proudest, melt in the light of her beautiful eyes ? 
 If I did I would at once walk across the park and 
 throw myself into the mere." 
 
 He passed up the hall and from room to room, 
 still thinking of the wonderfulness and inscrutable- 
 ness of life. " I have had but one enemy and ill- 
 wisher in the world — Violet Vesprie ! She came 
 between me and her brother, who had done so much 
 to soften the agony of the branding iron with which 
 fate was branding me. She came between me and 
 the one creature that I loved and had cause to love. 
 She has ruined me, destroyed me, made me 
 selfish and odious I Suppose she were to return 
 now ? What should I do ? 
 
 " It was not love that thrilled my frame when her 
 lips touched my forehead on the osier ait. Lip to lip, 
 flesh to flesh, there we were, the pauper girl whom 
 my miserable sophistry had given a false position 
 to — the pauper girl and the pauper poet. I hate 
 her ! She is the only person in the world that I do 
 hate! 
 
 ** What should I do if she came back now ? Well 
 
A MOONLIGHT VISION 125 
 
 — well, she won't come back. The gutter-bird is 
 going to explore her nest before he leaves it and 
 England for ever!" 
 
 He wandered about the place into which the moon 
 was shining brilliantly through the south-eastern 
 windows. The panelled portraits seemed alive and 
 talking to him. 
 
 " Violet's ancestors ! " he said, " I wonder what 
 the Slasher's ancestors were ? I suppose the 
 Slasher's son had paternal ancestors more remote 
 than his immediate progenitor. Who were my 
 paternal ancestors, I wonder, before the Flood? 
 What was the difference then between the blood of 
 the Vespries and the blood of the Redwoods ? Was 
 the difference then so great that the primeval 
 Vesprie's flesh must not touch the flesh of the 
 primeval Redwoods ? " 
 
 He stood for a while lost in thought. 
 
 Suddenly he cried out with a bitter laugh, " What 
 a fool I am — what a fool I am ! My business is to 
 dismiss this girl from my mind." 
 
 At last he reached the breakfast room. On the 
 little tray was the very loaf from which she had 
 eaten . And on a sideboard were two other 
 loaves — which the baker's boy had evidently 
 left the day before — a little corner of cheese, 
 somewhat dry ; and there was the tumbler 
 from which she had drunk some water for the 
 last time. 
 
 " Yes," said he, lifting up the tumbler in which 
 there still remained a few tablespoonfuls of water, 
 " she's a water-drinker." 
 
 And he turned the glass round as if to try and 
 
126 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 discover where her lips had touched it, and then he 
 put his Hps to it and drank the water off. 
 
 Then he went towards Lawrie's room and placed 
 his hand on the door-handle, meaning to turn it very 
 gently ; but his hand shook as though with palsy 
 and the lock rattled. He pushed the door open 
 and felt as much agitation as if he expected to see 
 her there. 
 
 At last, with still more agitation, he went to the 
 room where he knew she used to sleep. 
 
 It was some time before he could bring himself to 
 open that sacred door, but he did so at last. 
 
 There was the little bed ; made as neatly for the 
 last time as though she meant to sleep in it to-night. 
 A little brass bed with a tester covered with a 
 drapery of that rose-tint pink which he knew she 
 loved. 
 
 He walked up to the bed. He would have loved 
 to throw himself on the bed, but he could not — he 
 dared not. Instead of this he knelt down by the 
 bedside and threw his arms on the counterpane, 
 and his head upon his arms, and his lips upon the 
 drapery. Did he pray ? Perhaps so. The scene 
 is too sacred for further words from the historian 
 of this man's life. 
 
 This alone need be said. That, mighty as has 
 been the power of love in the human race, never did 
 man worship woman more passionately than did 
 this stricken poet, whose father was a pugilist, 
 worship the last representative of the greatest old 
 family in England. 
 
 It is only a poet who really knows what love at 
 its tensest can really be. For it is he alone who can 
 
A MOONLIGHT VISION 127 
 
 read to the full in the loveliness of a lovely girl the 
 beauty that throbs at the heart of nature. 
 
 It was some time before Redwood rose and 
 walked to the window, through which the moon- 
 light was shining brightly. " How many times 
 has that same moon shone here upon a beautiful 
 face and lit up the golden curls around it ! " 
 
 After a time he threw up the window. Leaning 
 his arms upon the window sill, he looked out into 
 the night. 
 
 Suddenly, he gave a start and exclaimed, 
 " Violet — Violet's wraith ! — is she dead — is that 
 her spirit ? Or is it the spirit of that girl, 
 her ancestress, who is said still to haunt the 
 grounds ? " 
 
 In the dark shadow of the spreading cedar trees 
 there stood Violet looking up at the building. 
 Then the sight vanished. 
 
 "It was a spectral illusion," said he; "but it 
 shows how my very being is filled with the image 
 of this girl, whom it should be a point of honour 
 with me and a point of duty to scorn and hate. 
 Time for me to leave this ! I am beginning to feel 
 how wisely I have acted in determining to quit 
 England ! How can I live here when the entire 
 building is filled with her image ? Yes, I must 
 get as far as possible away from Vesprie Towers. 
 I will turn over a new leaf. I will fly from this 
 place and never see it again." 
 
 His meditation was suddenly interrupted by an 
 appearance in one of the windows which he had not 
 noticed before, owing to the intervention of some 
 boughs. This was a light in one of the windows 
 
128 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 at an an^tle of the Towers. There could be no mis- 
 take about it — the ruddy Hght mixed with the 
 moonlight outside. The room was the same that 
 he had lately visited, Lawrie's room, which he 
 remembered so well. 
 
 What could this mean ? He had inferred from 
 the words of the announcement of the sale of the 
 Towers, " Immediate possession can be given," 
 that the Towers was quite unoccupied. But 
 evidently someone was there now. Was it a care- 
 taker, or had someone entered the place after 
 himself? Or had someone done so unlawfully like 
 himself ? 
 
 The door was ajar ; he pushed it open and 
 entered. 
 
 He was confronted by a sight that stopped his 
 pulses — Violet's beautiful face. 
 
 There she was sitting in the antique chair before 
 described, which was said by tradition to have 
 belonged to her ancestor, Childe Rowland, the chair 
 which was called the lucky chair — sitting before the 
 same antique Jacobean table — sitting there, her 
 head thrown gently back against the carved crest 
 of the chair-back, fast asleep. The warm light 
 from the candle threw over her face and neck a 
 deep rosy light, and turned the little golden curls, 
 clustering down her cheek and round the throat, 
 into the rich colour of burnished copper. 
 
 She seemed to him more lovely by far than when 
 he had seen her with the sunlight upon her in the 
 osier ait — more lovely by far than the dream-image 
 of her which he had been striving to drive from his 
 mind. 
 
A MOONLIGHT VISION 129 
 
 He suddenly withdrew and gently pulled the 
 door in the same position as that in which he had 
 found it. 
 
 He passed along the corridor which seemed 
 illuminated by the vision he had just left. 
 
 The warfare of conflicting emotion that was 
 going on within him, the struggle of pride and 
 resentment with love, was so great that beads of 
 perspiration stood upon his forehead as he groped 
 his way downstairs. When he reached the lower 
 floor he sat dowm upon the bottom stair, swaying 
 like a tree in the wind. 
 
 Young as he was, Martin Redwood had known, we 
 may be sure, a greater variety of emotions than any 
 poet of his time. For in these days poets do not 
 lead chequered lives. But the great crisis in 
 Martin's life was at work as he sat at the bottom 
 of those stairs. 
 
 " There is more of the pride of race in her face 
 when she is asleep," he said to himself, " than when 
 she is awake. Often have I watched her, flitting 
 about the empty house when she has thought her- 
 self alone, and been repelled even in my fool-days 
 by the beauty-curse of that lovely mouth, and the 
 proud bearing of that neck and shoulders. But as 
 she sits there asleep there is shed from every 
 feature that cruel pride of race which makes me 
 hate her ! Yes, it is hate that is burning up my 
 soul and body ! It must be hate. Love it cannot 
 be — no, no ! I am an abject creature, no doubt, but 
 I'm not so bad as that. If I thought it was love I 
 would go and throw myself into the mere. And yet, 
 God help me ! What is it that makes me feel, as I 
 
 ViT, K 
 
130 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 think of those cruel hps, that to feel them once on 
 my own I would yield up every aspiration that I 
 once had before I knew that I sprang from the offal 
 of the earth. It is the beauty of her lips that 
 maddens me. Everything about her puts the 
 beauty of all other women into the shade. But I 
 feel that my pride has resisted everything else — ■ 
 the divinely lit eyes — the grace of the form and the 
 movement — I feel that I could have resisted every- 
 thing but her mouth, the proud curve of which 
 seems conscious of my inferiority and my love. 
 
 *'But the bravest of all girls that ever lived is 
 Violet Vesprie, who has lived in the Towers alone, 
 without knowing that she had a guardian who 
 w^ould save her from the smallest harm." 
 
 Then he rose and began to move upstairs, mur- 
 muring, " It will be the last sight of her for ever, 
 but I must see her again this once." 
 
 When he reached the door he pushed it open 
 again. There she was, exactly as he had left her, 
 except for the expression on the face. 
 
 She was evidently now in a beautiful dream, for 
 the lips were moving, and as Martin approached 
 her he heard the words that made him quite sure 
 what she was dreaming about. 
 
 In her dream she was evidently living over again 
 her experience of that autumn day so firmly 
 impressed on his own memory w^hen he saw her 
 standing underneath the Vesprie Oak gazing at the 
 mirrored rainbow in that wide part of the back- 
 water which opened into the mere. After a while 
 he heard her say, " Are you the Vesprie luck ? " 
 
 And then she seemed to be listening to a reply. 
 
A MOONLIGHT VISION 131 
 
 And then a smile went dimpling over her face and 
 the lips seemed to be shaping themselves into a kiss. 
 " My God ! how beautiful she is — what a vision 
 of loveliness ! This is the true Violet, the Violet 
 as nature made her. The other, the scornful 
 Violet of vulgar convention, is another person. 
 This Violet, the Violet of the sweet dream, would 
 have clasped me and said, ' There is one thing can 
 make us equal — love ! ' How can I blame her 
 with reason ? How can I hate her ? Hate her ? 
 Fool ! It has never been hate at all. It has been 
 love. I shall love her as long as I live ! " 
 
 The expression on his face as he slipped into the 
 room, round the table and behind her, was that of 
 a man who was committing sacrilege. It was not 
 merely that the scion of a house of disgrace was 
 intruding into the presence of a daughter of the 
 Vespries — a man in the dead of night in an empty 
 house was intruding into the sacred precincts of 
 beautiful and innocent maidenhood. For the first 
 time in his life he was doing a thing of which he was 
 ashamed ; for the first time in his life he was 
 assaulting the citadel of his great pride. But he 
 could not help it. He was drawn into the aura 
 surrounding the object of his worship. He felt 
 helpless in the toils of that fascination. 
 
 And now for the first time he perceived on the 
 table in front of Violet a beautiful jewel. He re- 
 cognised it as the rainbow topaz which Lawrence 
 Vesprie had once shown him — the family heirloom, 
 known as "the Vesprie luck." It was lying in its 
 soiled and ragged leathern case. Martin Redwood 
 took out the jewel and held it up to the light, and 
 
132 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 was so soon lost in a dream about it that it seemed 
 to him that he could see in its depths a lovely face 
 which at one moment seemed Violet's, at another 
 the face of his sister Molly. At last he restored 
 the jewel to its case and stood looking in the same 
 dreamy way at the sleeping girl. 
 
 " The dream is still with her," he said, bending 
 his face across the table to see the way in which her 
 lips began to stir, like dreaming rose leaves flutter- 
 ing in the wind. Again she murmured, " You are 
 indeed the Vesprie luck ! " 
 
 Martin bent his face still further over the table, 
 and when her lips again formed themselves into a 
 kiss he put his own gently upon them. He drew 
 his face back, for the beautiful eyes opened wide 
 upon him, but they were still full of sleep. 
 
 He moved rapidly away, and in a second had 
 slipped behind the old armour of Sir Hugh Vesprie, 
 which he had so often examined. As he stood 
 there Martin realised the rash thing he had done. 
 He stood trembling in his place of concealment, 
 expecting a shriek of horror, but none came. 
 Feeling confident, he now peeped round and saw 
 her quietly sink down into her chair again. She 
 seemed as though she expected him to be standing 
 there. 
 
 She then took up her candle and left the room. 
 
 Martin remained in the moonlit room gazing at 
 the panel pictures upon which the moonlight was 
 falling. Then he went and sat in the chair which 
 Violet had just left. 
 
 Something which had fallen from Violet's lips 
 after she woke worked a strange and powerful effect 
 
A MOONLIGHT VISION 133 
 
 upon his mind. " She saw me," he said. " Yes, 
 she looked straight in my eyes. But I seem 
 to her part of her dream. Her imagination 
 accepts my face as the countenance of the 
 Vesprie luck." 
 
 He then hurried through the corridor and left the 
 house. But he did not leave the grounds — he 
 could not. He stood on the pleasaunce looking at 
 the one illuminated window. 
 
 At last the light began to move. " She is awake ! " 
 Then it vanished from the window. 
 
 " She is going to her bedroom," he said, and he 
 ran round the angle of the building and stood before 
 a window which he knew well, having so often 
 w^atched it before. 
 
 There was the light, shining at that window now. 
 
 " She has gone to bed," he said. 
 
 His mind was so full of the vision he had seen that 
 he well knew that he should get no sleep that night. 
 Then why not spend the night as near to her as he 
 could ? 
 
 " She kissed me in a dream. Her lips touched 
 mine, but she was unconscious of it. But I felt 
 them — I feel them now. God help me ! I shall 
 always feel them although I well know that there 
 is no power on earth that would make her press 
 her lips upon my face when she was awake ! Still 
 it is something that in sleep she can touch them, 
 for in sleep spirits can meet ! And why should it 
 not be so in another world ? She is poor like me, 
 and homeless. But had I all the wealth of a Vesprie 
 nabob of old, her pride of race would prevent her 
 touching my face with her lips. Even if I were on 
 
134 VESPRTE TOWERS 
 
 the throne of King Cophetua, and she were dressed 
 in rags, the beggar-girl Penelophon, it would be the 
 same — the superstition is in her very blood. 
 
 " Nor would I let her. No, no ! If her pride is 
 indomitable, so is mine." 
 
 But still he did not stir until the dawn. 
 
BOOK II 
 
 VIOLET VESPRIE IN LONDON 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 MRS. CARLISH's parlour FLOOR 
 
 As a cab drew up in front of a house in a quiet 
 street out of the York Road, Lambeth, a girl sprang 
 from the vehicle and rapped with great vivacity 
 at a door, dingy with blistered and broken paint. 
 A short, stout square-chinned woman with her hair 
 in curl papers, and a large carpet-broom in her hand, 
 answered the summons. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Jordan at home ? " 
 
 " No person of that name lives here." 
 
 " But she used to live here." 
 
 " Very likely, and some one used to live here 
 before her, and somebody else before that." 
 
 " But don't you know where she has gone ? " 
 
 " Bless my soul, no ! Of course I don't. I never 
 heard her name before," grunted the woman, " I 
 found the place was to let, and I took it. I don't 
 know 'oo lived here before me." 
 
 During this dialogue the little woman's bright 
 eyes travelled over the girl from head to foot. 
 
 " I've just come in by train," said the girl, " and 
 expected Mrs. Jordan to be living here." 
 
 " And did she expect you ? " 
 
 " I wrote to her and could not wait for her 
 answer. She is slow at writing. She is our old 
 nurse. I suddenly made up my mind to come to 
 
138 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 London ; and as I knew nobody else in London 
 but her, I thought I would stay with her." 
 
 " I can see you're a young lady," said the woman. 
 
 " Yes," said the girl, " I'm Miss Vesprie — what 
 am I to do ? — where am I to go ? I don't know 
 anyone in London." 
 
 " Come inside. That cabby's on the grin." 
 
 And indeed the cabby, discovering that his fare 
 had come to what seemed to him the wrong address, 
 and that the woman was nevertheless asking her in, 
 gave a sarcastic grin and put his finger to the side 
 of his nose. 
 
 " Come inside," added the woman, "and let us 
 talk about it." 
 
 She then turned back into the narrow passage 
 from which she had emerged, and led the wa}^ to a 
 shabby parlour, in which there were four chairs and 
 a little round table covered with brown American 
 oil-cloth, and a gaselier above it — so flimsy a 
 gaselier that it would have seemed to be there more 
 for ornament than use, had not the black patch 
 above it testified that it was really a practicable 
 gas-burner. 
 
 When Violet Vesprie got into the room the woman 
 stood and looked at her again, and then said, " Have 
 you got a reference from your last landlady ? " 
 
 " No," said Violet, " I have just told you that 
 this is my first visit to London." 
 
 " The custom is a reference or a week's rent 
 down," said the woman. " But you're from the 
 country — I needn't be told that. There's a kind of 
 a wild-flower smell about you, and a wild-flower look 
 about your eyes. And besides I don't know that 
 
MRS. CARLISH'S PARLOUR FLOOR 139 
 
 references arc much good. I took the last lodger 
 with a reference, and she went away and left me 
 three pounds in debt." 
 
 " What a shame ! " said Violet. 
 
 " But I must say she played on the pianer," 
 continued the landlady, " and I got lots o' jolly fun 
 out o' that ; and besides she left a few of her 
 things behind her, and they've come in useful, so 
 what's the odds if you are but 'appy ? I certainly 
 like the looks o' you, Miss, if you'll excuse my saying 
 it. And if you have nowhere else to go to, you can 
 take these two rooms for twelve shillings a week, 
 including cooking and attendance, and sixpence a 
 scuttle for coal, and gas another extra. Of course, 
 I shan't expect you to be in at all meals. There's 
 no need for that. There's a capital cook-shop 
 round the corner, and I shall never be too proud to 
 go out and fetch you anything. I don't keep a 
 reg'lar servant. I'm my own chamber-maid, 
 parlour-maid and cook. I used to have a little 
 slut to 'elp me, but I caught her one day picking 
 out the p'tatoes — the best brown'd uns — from out 
 o' the pig's-fry dish, and a-dipping her fingers in 
 the gravy, so I got out of her." 
 
 Violet made no answer. Such domestic vagaries 
 were outside the range of her experience. 
 
 " The rooms are as cheap as dirt," the woman 
 continued, " though dirt ain't the word to use in 
 these rooms. For they're as clean — as clean, 
 though I say it, as a new pin ! " 
 
 At this moment Violet involuntarily looking up 
 at the black patch, the woman added, following her 
 glance—" I haven't been able to white- wash the 
 
140 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 ceiling yet, but I was going to do it to-morrow. 
 Anything to oblige." 
 
 " You are very kind," said Violet. 
 
 " Not at all, miss. It's all in the way o' busi- 
 ness," said the landlady — " Can you play on the 
 pianer ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the girl, with a smile. 
 
 " Ah, then, that's all right — I like to listen to the 
 pianer when it's a wet day and I can't get out and 
 there are no organ-grinders about. I want to let 
 my rooms and you want rooms. Shall I tell the 
 cabby to bring your box in ? " 
 
 There was something in the woman's face that 
 inspired confidence, and Violet, not knowing what 
 else to do, assented, and the cabman brought the 
 box into the little parlour. 
 
 When the cabman, after growling at his fare, had 
 withdrawn, the woman said to Violet, 
 
 " You can take the rooms for a week, and then if 
 you like 'em you can keep 'em on." 
 
 Observing that Violet's eyes were fixed upon 
 the oil-cloth covering the table, the glossy surface 
 of which had cracked and peeled off, showing the 
 canvas beneath, she added, 
 
 " As to them cracks, I've some stuff that I can fill 
 them up with so that you could never notice them." 
 
 Violet was merely thinking how much the colour 
 of the table-cloth reminded her of the skins of 
 horse-chestnuts that she used to love to see shining 
 in the long grass in Vesprie Park, and sad thoughts 
 prevented her from answering the woman. 
 
 The landlady then led Violet into the bedroom 
 through the folding doors. 
 
MRS. CARLISH'S PARLOUR FLOOR 141 
 
 "What a very little room!" said Violet, not by 
 way of complaint, but by way of comment, as she 
 recalled the vast rooms at the Towers. 
 
 " All the better for being little, as you'll find in 
 the winter time." 
 
 " Why in the winter time ? " said Violet, her 
 thoughts still wandering. 
 
 " You can make up a good fire in the parlour," 
 answered the landlady, " and you can throw the 
 foldin' doors open, and there you are ! You can 
 undress by a good fire, just like a lady of the land." 
 By this time the woman had begun really to 
 amuse the girl. 
 
 " And has the smallness of the room any advan- 
 tage in the summer also ? " said she. 
 
 '' In summer," said the landlady, " if it gets 
 rather close, you can throw up the parlour winder, 
 keep one o' these folding' doors open, and the other 
 door will screen you from the draughts." 
 
 " The bed seems short," said Violet, who grew 
 more and more amused at the woman's loquacity. 
 
 " That's because you're so tall, miss," said the 
 landlady. " But I've got the foot-board to knock 
 off the end to make it longer when the need is, so 
 that I can put a couple o' pillows on a little bench 
 that I've got downstairs and make it as long as 
 you like ; and the blankets and sheets and things 
 are just as long as they're made." 
 
 "There is one thing," said Violet, in the tone of 
 one who wished to make the best of things — " every- 
 thing certainly does look beautifully clean." 
 
 " Ah, and that's what you cannot say about many 
 other parlours in this street," said the httle woman. 
 
142 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 She then took Violet to a chest of drawers which 
 she saw had been very good once. They were old 
 Dutch marquetry, with patches of veneer peeled off, 
 and the original brass handles replaced by pieces 
 of string thrust through the screw holes where the 
 handles once were. 
 
 Violet turned towards the little dressing-table, 
 which was covered with pink and white millinery 
 that seemed like flounced petticoats and said, 
 " How charmingly you have dressed this ! I don't 
 think I ever saw a dressing table with the legs 
 covered away entirely by flounces like that, but it 
 really looks very nice." 
 
 And she went up to the table and lifted the 
 bottom of the covering from the floor. 
 
 The woman for the first time looked a little con- 
 fused, for what had seemed a table was merely a 
 structure built of one or more of those tea-chests, 
 covered with glazed olive-coloured paper decorated 
 with vast Chinese letters, which are to be bought 
 from grocers for a few pence. 
 
 " Ah," said the woman — " that is the only thing 
 that ain't genuine in the room. I hadn't got a 
 dressing table, so I made one by tying the four 
 chests together." 
 
 Violet could not repress a smile, and said, 
 
 " And a very nice piece of furniture it makes, to 
 be sure ! Nobody would ever know but that it was 
 a real table ; and I have no doubt that this also has 
 certain advantages over a real table." 
 
 " Yes," said the woman, with a twinkle which 
 showed how she enjoyed the friendly satire — " If 
 you ever want to learn the Chinese language, you 
 
MRS. CARLISH'S PARLOUR FLOOR 143 
 
 have only to pull up the flounces, and there you 
 are ! " 
 
 By this time the woman had struck Violet as 
 being perfectly delightful, and she said, 
 
 " Did you learn your Chinese in that way ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the woman, " all that I ever did 
 learn." 
 
 " It is certainly nice to know that one can always 
 learn Chinese in one's bedroom," said Violet, *' if 
 one likes." 
 
 " The looking-glass," continued the woman, turn- 
 to an old heart-shaped little swing-glass that stood 
 on the dressing table, " is as good a glass as can be, 
 except for these few spots in the corners — and the 
 corners you never want to look into." 
 
 Violet instinctively looked into the glass, but 
 found it so loosely attached to the uprights that at 
 whatever angle it was placed it swung into the 
 perpendicular position. 
 
 " Ah," said the other, " all that you have got to 
 do is to prop it up in the right place with your hair 
 brush, then you can see it at whatever slope you 
 like." 
 
 And so she went on all round the room, defending 
 all the infirmities of the furniture. 
 
 The woman was so genial that Violet found fault 
 with nothing except in a playful way, and began to 
 feel quite comfortable. 
 
 " Let me uncord your trunk for you," said the 
 landlady. And she straightway knelt down and 
 was soon busy untying the knots. 
 
 While Violet was opening her trunk, the woman 
 said, " When you've unpacked your things and got 
 
144 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 settled down, I suppose you'd like to take some- 
 thing. What can I get for you ? " 
 
 "There's nothing," said Violet, "that I'd like so 
 much as some tea." 
 
 " What should you like with it ? " said the 
 woman. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," said Violet, " what 
 have you in the house ? " 
 
 " Why, God bless my soul, child, nothing ! There 
 never is a scrap of anything eatable in this house 
 except bread and butter and cheese. I suppose 
 you've been used to a larder in a gentleman's 
 mansion. But I can run out and get you almost 
 anything. There's a cold beef and ham shop round 
 the corner and a cook-shop opposite that, and Lord ! 
 don't they hate each other ! And I can get you 
 some slices of cold beef and ham, and I can get you 
 a saveloy, or maybe some black sausage or some 
 chitterlings." 
 
 Violet looked bewildered. 
 
 " Pray get me whatever you think best." And 
 she put some silver into her hand. 
 
 The woman ran out and soon came back with 
 two plates, one filled with cold viands, one with 
 warm. Violet had now returned to the little 
 parlour and was gazing meditatively at the piano. 
 
 " Ah," said the woman, " I'm glad you're fond 
 o' the pianer, I picked as big a one as I could." 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, " it was the size of it in 
 relation to the room and the tiny chairs that was 
 attracting my notice. It reminds me of the very 
 last sight I saw when I left my dear home in the 
 country." 
 
MRS. CARLISH S PARLOUR FLOOR 145 
 
 " And what was that ? " said the woman, who 
 seemed interested. 
 
 " It seems as mueh out of proportion to the room 
 and the things in it as a certain young cuckoo that 
 I saw pushing the natural owners of the nest out- 
 side into the bushes. I hope," she continued, 
 " that the poor Uttle chairs won't be served by that 
 pretentious big piano Hke that. I feel, after all, 
 that I ought to have turned that rascal cuckoo out 
 of the nest, for I'm afraid the poor little birdies are 
 on the grass again." 
 
 The woman looked at Violet in a bewildered way, 
 not knowing what to reply. She set her purchases 
 down on the table, and seemed amused at the 
 expression on Violet's face as she gazed at the 
 wonderful viands. 
 
 As she went out, she said, " Some of these want 
 dressing up. I 've got a good fire in the stove and 
 I '11 soon bring 'em back quite ready for you." 
 
 After the woman had left the room, Violet sat 
 down on one of the flimsy chairs and gazed out of 
 the window. Comparatively quiet as the street 
 was, it seemed to her that she was in the midst of the 
 Babylonian whirl of which she only knew by report. 
 
 When the woman returned and brought all the 
 requisites for the tea, Violet's eyes at once fastened 
 themselves upon the dish of warm viands, the black 
 sausage and the chitterlings, and said, " I don't 
 think I ever saw sausages look so dark as that. 
 And what are those other white things on the same 
 dish ? Are they really nice ? " 
 
 " Nice ! " said the landlady, "They're chitterlings. 
 Nothing in the world so tasty as chitterlings ! You 
 
146 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 know what saveloy is ? " she continued, seeing 
 Violet look at the other dish, on which were the cold 
 meat and the saveloy. 
 
 " I suppose," said Violet, " it's that very thick 
 looking sausage. I think, however, / shall content 
 myself with the ham and beef, which really looks 
 very nice." 
 
 And she went and sat down at the tea-table. 
 
 " The tea is made," said the landlady, " and now, 
 if I may be so free, I should like to see you enjoy it 
 a bit before I leave you. There's nothing I like to 
 see so much as people enjoying their food — unless 
 it is eating it myself." 
 
 '' Please have something with me," urged Violet 
 politely, seeing the woman's eyes fall on the 
 food. 
 
 " Well, as you're so pressing," said the landlady 
 with alacrity, *' I will take a mossle o' the black 
 sausage. I know you won't like it unless I do." 
 
 Violet did not remember that she had been so 
 particularly pressing in her invitation. 
 
 The woman took part of a black sausage upon a 
 plate, and stepping back upon the rug began to eat 
 it, while Violet quietly sat down and took her tea 
 and cold beef and ham. 
 
 "I dussay," said the woman, after eating the 
 larger part of the dainties herself, " that you would 
 now like to go to your room and arrange your 
 things while I clear away." 
 
 Violet nodded assent and went into the bedroom 
 and closed the folding doors. 
 
 While she was busy unpacking her trunk, she 
 heard the door of the parlour open and someone 
 
MRS. CARLISH'S PARLOUR FLOOR 147 
 
 enter, and a conversation began between the land- 
 lady and the newcomer, who, as she found from her 
 voice, was a young girl. They seemed to be un- 
 aware that the flimsy partition between them did 
 not stop the sound from passing to Violet, and the 
 word " she — she — she " soon informed her that she 
 was the subject of the conversation. 
 
 The more the woman talked the louder grew her 
 voice, until at last Violet could hear every word. 
 
 " My parlour floor," she heard the woman say in 
 an ironical tone, " it's redic'lous ! " 
 
 " Yes 'm," came a quaint acquiescent voice. 
 
 " Lodger in a little street like this out o' York 
 Road, Lambeth ! It's redic'lous ! " 
 
 " Yes 'm." 
 
 " Some lord's daughter eloped. That's what 
 she is." 
 
 " Yes 'm." 
 
 " I shall have the chap after her in a minute or 
 two ! " 
 
 " Yes 'm." 
 
 Violet heard her walk round the room and flick 
 at a piece of furniture now and then with a duster. 
 
 Then she exclaimed — 
 
 " Takes my parlour floor — a high-stepper like 
 that ! Bosh — bosh ! But what does it mean ? 
 When she comes back I'll put it straight to her, and 
 say, ' Bosh ! you're some lord's daughter in disguise ! 
 When's the chap coming ? ' P'raps I ought to say 
 when's my lord coming ? Now what does it mean ? 
 Why do lords' daughters come after some pre- 
 tended old nurse and then take folks' parlour floors 
 in Lambeth ? I'll say, ' You'fl find a friend in me. 
 
148 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 but you must open up.' That's what I'll say to her 
 the moment she comes into this room again." 
 
 At this moment Violet threw open the folding 
 doors and came upon the landlady and a little 
 object very carroty, very blue-eyed, and very 
 freckled. Evidently a little Irish girl. At the 
 sight of Violet the little girl vanished. 
 
 Violet spoke to the woman in that sweet, dignified, 
 musical, high-bred tone of hers which fascinated 
 everybody, and which is generally called " aristo- 
 cratic," and at one time, perhaps, would have 
 been so. 
 
 The woman, instead of putting her searching 
 questions, quailed like a spaniel who has been doing 
 wrong. 
 
 " You were about to speak to me, I think, when 
 I came in ? " 
 
 " I was only going to say, miss, that I am very 
 proud to have you as a lodger." 
 
 " Oh, is that all ? That's very kind of you," 
 said Violet. " It is so nice to give satisfaction." 
 
 The woman, whose name was Carlish, made what 
 was evidently an involuntary curtsey and went out 
 of the room, carrying the tray with her. 
 
 Violet saw that she had unintentionally over- 
 awed the poor woman, and in her present lonely 
 position she would much rather have been on easy 
 confidential terms with this plebeian landlady, 
 though, of course, without overstepping the bounds 
 of caste — for her instinct had taught her that the 
 quaint little creature was well-meaning and, in her 
 way, good. 
 
 So after sitting for a long time, feeling far more 
 
MRS. CARLISH'S PARLOUR FLOOR 149 
 
 lonely in the heart of London than she had ever 
 done in Vesprie Towers, she pulled one of the old- 
 fashioned faded bell-ropes that hung by the side of 
 the fire-place, and on Mrs. Carlish re-entering the 
 room, she put to her several questions as to the 
 street in which she found herself, and these were 
 followed by a few questions about London. 
 
 At first the w^oman's answers were somewhat shy, 
 for minute by minute she seemed to be more and 
 more impressed by the girl's subtle distinction ; 
 but after a while her natural volubility became 
 irresistible. She began a monologue and w^ent 
 right on, with very little break. 
 
 The subject of the woman's talk was so new to 
 Violet that much of it was quite unintelligible to 
 her. The woman lost all consciousness that she 
 was chattering to a stranger, and mixed up her talk 
 about her own affairs, her neighbours' affairs — as 
 far as she had been able to learn about them, which 
 she lamented was very little — and all other affairs 
 in a wonderful amalgam. 
 
 The consequence of this was that Violet felt that 
 she was not with a stranger, but with an old acquaint- 
 ance, and this feeling put her quite at her ease. 
 
 That night, before going to bed, Violet took from 
 her pocket an old leathern case. Glancing with an 
 anxious, listening look over her shoulder, she pulled 
 out the brilliant family heirloom, the rainbow topaz, 
 and held it up in front of the feeble candle-light, 
 and gazed into its many coloured facets with 
 dreamy eyes. She had taken it from a drawer in 
 the old bureau in her father's room at Vesprie 
 
150 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Towers, where it had been kept, according to a 
 tradition, ever since the days of Lady Godiva, to 
 whom the Godiva jewels were beheved to have 
 belonged. 
 
 " The Vesprie luck," she murmured, " the 
 Vesprie luck ! I will never part with it, whatever 
 happens — no, not even if starvation stares me in 
 the face ! " 
 
 And, restoring it to its case, she placed it under her 
 pillow and crept into bed. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 
 
 The fatigues of the day caused Violet to sleep 
 unusually soundly even for her. Her sleep indeed 
 lasted late into the forenoon. She sprang up 
 suddenly and caught sight of Mrs. Carlish standing 
 between the folding doors. 
 
 " London ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Excuse me," said the woman, " but you lay so 
 still that I wasn't quite sure you were here at all. 
 Several times I came into the front parlour and 
 listened at the folding doors, but at last as the clock 
 struck I thought I must look in." 
 
 " WTiat's the time ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Twelve o'clock." 
 
 " Impossible — how dreadfully late ! " 
 
 " Not late for me,'' said the woman, " but I got 
 up a couple of hours earlier than my usual time 
 because I thought you might be famishing for your 
 breakfast. I thought you'd like b'iled eggs, p'haps, 
 being from the country, so I got three nice fresh uns 
 in for you." 
 
 " Yes," said Violet abstractedly, for she had not 
 yet recovered from the novelty of this new 
 experience. 
 
 The woman then closed the doors, and Violet 
 sprang out of bed. 
 
152 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 To her dismay, she found that there was no bath 
 in the room. A bath had appeared to her so 
 inevitable a feature of the economy of Hfe that she 
 never thought of asking for it overnight. 
 
 This was her first experience of the bitter contrast 
 between such forms of poverty as she had known 
 and the forms known to the lower classes, with 
 whom perfect cleanliness is a thing very difficult to 
 achieve. 
 
 Hearing Mrs. Carlish moving about in the next 
 room, she called out. 
 
 " You have forgotten the bath." 
 " Forgotten what ? " said Mrs. Carlish. 
 " The bath." 
 
 " God bless my soul, child, I haven't got a bath 
 in the house ; never had one I When my lodgers 
 want a bath, they go round the corner and get a six- 
 penny one." 
 
 " I couldn't eat my breakfast without my bath," 
 said Violet, disconsolately. 
 
 " Then tumble into your things, miss — tumble 'em 
 on anyhow, and I'll take you round to the baths." 
 Violet did as she was bidden, and they w^ere soon 
 hurrying along the street towards the baths. 
 
 When they reached the place, Mrs. Carlish asked 
 the assistant whether she might not go and see the 
 young lady in the swimming bath, and the assistant 
 good-naturedly allowed her to. 
 
 Violet's exploits as a swimmer not only amazed 
 Mrs. Carlish, but the attendants and everybody 
 there. 
 
 " She's a professional," said one of the attendants, 
 " that's what she is," 
 
EAKLY DAYS IN LONDON 153 
 
 On returning to her bedroom, Violet had ample 
 opportunities of testing those exeellences of the 
 Carlish furniture upon which the owner had 
 expatiated upon the previous day. 
 
 Through the folding doors she heard Mrs. Carlish 
 still busy setting her breakfast. She went into the 
 parlour and found the woman arranging the little 
 breakfast table, upon which she had set three 
 eggs. 
 
 Wien Violet attacked one of the eggs, she per- 
 ceived, on the shell being broken, that the white and 
 the yolk seemed mixed up in a way that was strange 
 to her. On putting some of it to her lips, it seemed 
 to taste of damp straw ; and coming to the con- 
 clusion that the egg, although not rotten, had pro- 
 bably been packed in straw and had travelled a 
 good deal, she left it. 
 
 " Don't you like the egg, miss ? " said the 
 woman, "It's a new laid un — it's quite fresh. But 
 London freshness is not quite the same thing as 
 country freshness." 
 
 ''Well," said Violet, "I can't say that I like this 
 egg, and I daresay the other two are like it. I 
 suspect, Mrs. Carlish, in fact, that these eggs have 
 come over from Ireland, and have had rather a 
 rough passage, for the whites have got mixed up 
 with the yolks." 
 
 " I'm very sorry," said the woman, with genuine 
 disappointment. 
 
 " Have you any bacon in the house ? " 
 
 " No," said the woman, " I should never think of 
 keeping bacon in the house to be dried up to nothing. 
 I always go every morning to the shop and get my 
 
154 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 slice out o' the flitch, and its always nice and moist 
 and juicy. I'll run out and get you a nice rasher 
 and cook it for you in a jiffy." 
 
 She ran out with the activity of a young girl ; 
 and Violet could soon smell the rasher being cooked. 
 
 " Really," said Violet, when the woman brought 
 the bacon in, her face beaming with pleasure, 
 " you are most attentive and kind." 
 
 " Oh, not a bit of it," said she. " It's all in the 
 way of business, miss. But as you're not going to 
 eat the eggs and as you're so very pressing for me 
 to eat 'em, I think I'll just put 'em away." 
 
 And she took up the eggs and a spoon and put 
 them away with a rapidity that excited Violet's 
 admiration. 
 
 While Violet was still eating her breakfast, her 
 ears were filled by the unfamiliar street cries of 
 London. She would stop with her tea cup near her 
 lips and listen to them as though the discordant 
 notes were magic voices in some Arabian Nights' 
 story. 
 
 She was in London. 
 
 " How delightful to feel that you are in London," 
 said Violet to Mrs. Carlish. " I used to think I 
 shouldn't mind sleeping outside on the leads if I 
 only knew I was in London. But then," she added 
 in a sadder tone, " but then I always used to think 
 of going back again after my visit — going back to 
 Vesprie Towers." 
 
 " Oh, that's the name o' the place you come from, 
 miss, is it ? " said Mrs. Carlish, " and a very pretty 
 name too." 
 
 Violet made no answer. 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 155 
 
 ^^^len Mrs. Carlish had cleared the breakfast 
 things away, she returned and said, 
 
 " I don't wish to intrude myself upon you, miss, 
 but as you are quite new to London it seems to me 
 that I might be of some use to you. It's very easy 
 to be lost in London, you know. Is there any 
 place that you particularly want to go to ? But I 
 think you said last night you knew nobody at all." 
 
 " Well, I need scarcely say," said Violet, " first 
 I should like to see the Tower of London and 
 Westminster Abbey, and the next time you go to 
 either of them I should like to go with you. I 
 suppose you often go ? " 
 
 The woman looked at her with an amused smile. 
 " No mistake about your being from the country, 
 miss ! Do I often go to the Tower and West- 
 minster Abbey ? I've been to Westminster Abbey 
 once, but to the Tower I never did go." 
 
 " You do surprise me," said Violet. " Why, the 
 Tower of London and Westminster Abbey have 
 been mixed up with my dreams ever since I was a 
 
 child." 
 
 At this moment there was a noise in the street to 
 which Violet listened intently. 
 
 " Oh, that's only Punch and Judy," said Mrs. 
 Carhsh, and she rose to close the window. " That 
 confounded thing always comes once a week, and 
 this is their day. I love a barrel-organ, but I do 
 hate a Punch and Judy with their squawk — squawk 
 — squawk. I never give them a copper, and I 
 never will." 
 
 " Punch and Judy ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Is it possible," said Mrs. Carlish, partly to her- 
 
156 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 self, " that she never saw Punch and Judy ? " 
 Then, turning to Violet, she said, " Why it's a 
 foolish kind of play with puppets. It's wonderful 
 that you have never seen it, and yet how could you, 
 if you've only just come to London ? " 
 
 " Play ! " said Violet. " Oh, I should love to see it." 
 
 Violet drew a chair up to the window, peeped out, 
 and saw her first play, while Mrs. Carlish went to 
 attend to some domestic duties. 
 
 At once she became a child again, and never 
 since Punch was first invented did he get a more 
 admiring and absorbed spectator than he got in Mrs. 
 Carlish's " parlour floor." 
 
 At every whack dealt by Punch at his wife's head 
 her involuntary peals of laughter rang through the 
 room. There was not an intonation of Punch's 
 nasal voice as he spoke to his victim, or to Toby, that 
 did not seem to Violet to issue from the puppet's 
 lips. 
 
 Then the money collector, whose crafty eye had 
 caught sight of Violet, came under the window and 
 held out his battered hat. Violet felt in her pockets, 
 and finding no smaller coin than a shilling, took it 
 out, and looked at it rather wistfully, for there were 
 many things it would buy, and then at last threw 
 it out to the man. This resulted in the play being 
 begun again, for a shilling was evidently an unex- 
 pected donation. To Violet's embarrassment, the 
 front of the Punch show was now brought straight 
 before the window, especially for her behoof, and 
 she noticed that the opposite windows were thrown 
 up and people were looking, not upon Punch and 
 Judy, but upon her. 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 157 
 
 Mrs. Carlish now entered and said, " I'm afraid 
 you're attracting too much notice, miss. The 
 neighbours ain't used to seeing a beautiful grow'd 
 up young lady laughing at Punch and Judy like a 
 child. I think you had better shut the window 
 and see Punch and Judy another day." 
 
 And to Violet's great regret she pulled down the 
 window and the girl turned away. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish then went up to the piano and said, 
 
 " You do play the pianer, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, " I do, but I am somewhat 
 out of practice, for we had but one piano, and that 
 was very much worn." 
 
 " This is a beauty o' mine," she said, " and it's 
 paid for, too. I do so love music ! I love it better 
 than anything else in the world. And one reason 
 why I let my last lodger run three pounds into debt 
 was because she played on my pianer. And I do 
 miss hearing her play. Would you mind playing 
 me something ? " 
 
 Violet went to the piano and opened it. 
 
 As the music stool was out of order — the screw 
 havinop become broken — she took a chair and sat 
 down. 
 
 " What shall I play ? " 
 
 " Would you play ' Cheer, boys, Cheer ' ? " 
 
 " I never heard that," said Violet. 
 
 " Bless me ! You are from the country," said 
 the woman. " Can you play ' Good-bye, Daddy ' ? " 
 
 " It's a singular thing," said Violet, laughing, 
 "■ but I never even heard of that." 
 
 ■■ Well, you are from the country. I'll try and 
 think of some old tunes that I used to know 
 
158 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 when I was a girl. Can you play the ' Perfect 
 Cure ' ? " 
 
 " No," said Violet. 
 
 " Can you play ' Wait for the Waggon ' ? " 
 
 " No," said Violet, laughing. 
 
 " Can you play ' Woodman, Spare that Tree ' ? " 
 
 " Well, there," said Violet, " I do remember 
 hearing my aunts play it when I was quite a child, 
 but I am afraid I could not remember it sufficiently 
 even to play it by ear. And I am ashamed to 
 say that I do play a good deal by ear." 
 
 Whereupon the woman began to hum the tune, 
 and then to sing the first bar or two in a rather good 
 contralto voice : 
 
 " Oh, woodman, spare that tree — ee, 
 Touch not a single bough ; 
 In youth it sheltered me — ee. 
 And I'll protect it now." 
 
 Violet at once played the air as far as the asthmati- 
 cal piano would let her, to the woman's intense 
 delight. 
 
 "I do wish you could play ' Cheer, boys, 
 Cheer,' " she said. " I can play it with one finger." 
 
 Violet at once jumped up and said, " Pray, play 
 it, Mrs. Carlish." 
 
 The woman went and stood before the key-board 
 and picked out the notes with considerable dex- 
 terity, and Violet immediately followed her upon 
 the piano. She got really amused at this, and 
 tried to recall all the simple airs with which she was 
 familiar. 
 
EARLY DAYS IN |LONDON 159 
 
 " Can you play ' Home, Sweet Home ' ? " said 
 the woman. 
 
 " Ah," said Violet, " there is at last something 
 that 1 can play for you." 
 
 And her mind flew baek to Vesprie Towers, and 
 she and Lawrie were listening to the sound of 
 bells coming over the trees as they rang out the 
 favourite Vesprie air. The tears came into her 
 eyes. 
 
 The woman looked on with a deeply sympathetic 
 face, and said, 
 
 " You are thinking of your own home, miss." 
 Then her eyes said, " I wonder where it is ? " 
 
 And so the morning passed very pleasantly for 
 Violet, and when dinner time came and the busy 
 little w^oman had fetched from the inexhaustible 
 cook-shop round the corner a plate of salt beef and 
 carrots and onions, and pease pudding, Violet felt 
 quite at home and did full justice to the repast. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, Mrs. Carlish came into 
 the room, curl-papers removed, and dressed for 
 going out, and told Violet that she was going 
 over Hungerford Bridge into the Strand to do 
 some shopping, and that she would like to take 
 her to the Lowther Arcade. Violet was more than 
 ready for such an expedition, and in a very little 
 while they were crossing Hungerford Bridge. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish would have been disappointed if 
 Violet had failed to enjoy the wonderful things in 
 the Lowther Arcade, for it was a favourite resort 
 of her own. She possessed to an intense degree the 
 Cockney woman's love of life. London to her was 
 the universe ; she could conceive nothing outside 
 
160 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 London, and somehow the cheap gewgaws and 
 luxuries of the Arcade made her feel, when she was 
 there, that she was in the very centre of the wealth 
 of the world. Yet she was scarcely prepared for 
 Violet's delight at the raree show. 
 
 It almost seemed as if the instinctive love of 
 childish things, which had had no opportunity of 
 being exercised in her childhood, began to move 
 within the girl of seventeen, as the sap and latent 
 forces that had been arrested in a tree will move 
 when kissed by a late summer. She lingered over 
 the toys exactly as a child would have done. 
 Everything was new, magical, fairy-like. 
 
 But Mrs. Carlish was not content with seeing the 
 wonderful toys — she bought some ; she bought a 
 musical dog for the mantel-piece, and a curious 
 kind of piccolo which she tried in the bazaar until 
 the salesman said, 
 
 " I think I should wait until you get home, if I 
 were you, ma'am ! You will enjoy the children 
 playing it all the more if you don't play it yourself 
 now ! " 
 
 This random remark of the toyman's produced 
 an effect which he had not contemplated. The 
 lively little woman's one sorrow in life was that she 
 had no children — for she dearly loved children. 
 But the depression did not last many minutes, and 
 her face was again smiling. 
 
 After they left the bazaar, Mrs. Carlish said, 
 
 " Do you like gin and know-you ? " 
 
 *' I don't know what you mean," said Violet. 
 
 " There ! I thought you didn't," said the 
 woman. " It beats everything on earth, gin and 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 161 
 
 know-you does. It's a mixture of gin and 
 almonds." 
 
 " That sounds nice," said Violet, " I'm so fond 
 of almonds." 
 
 " Then you must let me treat you to a glass of 
 gin and ' know-you.' " 
 
 And she stopped in front of a small liquor-shop in 
 a street running into the northern side of the Strand. 
 
 " No, no," said Violet, " I couldn't go in there, 
 I think, not even with you, Mrs. Carlish." 
 
 " Oh, do come," said the woman. 
 
 " No," said Violet, "I'll stand here and wait for 
 you." 
 
 But as she said so she perceived that a well- 
 dressed man, whom she had seen on the other side 
 of the Strand, had crossed over and was now 
 stopping in the street to gaze at her. This made 
 her think that it would be better to go in with Mrs. 
 Carlish than to stand there alone ; and so she 
 followed her silently into the little bar. As it 
 chanced that there were no customers in the bar at 
 that moment, Violet did not regret going in there, 
 and she sat down upon the settee while Mrs. Carlish 
 went up to the bar and asked for two glasses of gin 
 and noyau. 
 
 When these were given her, she went to Violet 
 with a glass in each hand and offered one of the 
 glasses to Violet. 
 
 " I really could not drink it," said Violet. " I 
 really could not. It would make me ill." 
 
 " Oh, do taste it," said Mrs. Carlish. 
 
 Violet took the glass and put it to her lips and 
 sipped. She soon began to cough. 
 
 V.T. M 
 
162 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Impossible," she said, " to drink it ! But the 
 flavour is very nice. It's exactly like almonds. 
 Pray take it." 
 
 And she held out the glass towards Mrs. Carlish. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish took it, and stood before her with a 
 glass in each hand. Then she sipped from each 
 alternately, and said, 
 
 " Well, since you are so pressing, I suppose I 
 must take 'em both. But I always make it a rule 
 never to take more than a glass at a time, so that 
 I never get anything like drunk. I only get 
 merry." 
 
 " Merry," said Violet, " you're always merry." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Carlish, " what's the odds if 
 you are but 'appy?" 
 
 She then conducted Violet across the Strand to 
 Hungerford Bridge, her face shining with good 
 nature. 
 
 " I should like to give you a treat to-morrow 
 night. I have got two orders for the theater." 
 
 Perceiving that the word " orders " conveyed 
 no meaning to Violet, she said, 
 
 " My old man is a printer, you know, on the 
 newspapers, and he often gets free tickets, and I 
 have got two for to-morrow night." 
 
 "The theatre? How delightful!" said Violet. 
 " I have wanted to go to the theatre all my life." 
 
 The woman stopped on the bridge. 
 
 " Never been to a theater in your life ? " she 
 gasped. " Well, I knew at once that you were 
 from the country. There was a kind of a mow'd 
 grass smell about you. But I did think you must 
 have been to a theater. And yet you're a young 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 163 
 
 lady," she continued, looking into Violet's face as 
 if discussing some abstract question with her. " I 
 wasn't so much surprised about 'Punch and Judy,' 
 but I thought you must have been to a theater." 
 When they got into the house she said, 
 "And now we'll both take our teas. I'll get 
 your tea ready, and then I'll go and get my own, 
 for I do want a cup o' tea." 
 
 But the funny little creature had become such 
 a source of amusement to Violet that she did not 
 like to lose her company, and she said, 
 
 " Couldn't we take tea together, Mrs. Carlish ? " 
 " Certainly," said the woman, " if you will 
 condescend to take tea with a plain woman like 
 me." 
 
 At that moment there came a cry in the street. 
 " Water-cresses ! " 
 
 " Ah," said the landlady, " we're in luck's way. 
 There's the water-creese man ! O' course you like 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Violet, " they're dehcious." 
 And again she was back at Vesprie Towers, 
 gathering water-cresses for her breakfast. 
 
 When the little woman left her after tea, Violet 
 actually missed her company. The evening wore 
 on, and it got to be beyond Violet's bedtime. The 
 later it got the more active and bustling the little 
 woman became, as Violet could hear by the noise 
 in the house. 
 
 After a while, when she heard her landlady in the 
 passage, she opened the door, and under pretence of 
 asking for something she wanted, entered into 
 conversation with the woman, who came into the 
 
164 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 room, and once there she did not seem at all eager 
 to leave. At length Violet invited her to sit down, 
 which she did, and at once the flow of her garrulity 
 began. 
 
 Whenever Violet moved in her chair as a sign that 
 bed-time had arrived, the woman became more 
 garrulous still. 
 
 At last Violet said, 
 
 " I suppose the hours of London people are very 
 late." 
 
 " Mine are," said the woman. 
 
 " When do you generally go to bed ? " said 
 Violet. 
 
 " Oh, about four o'clock." 
 
 " Four o'clock in the morning ? " said Violet in 
 amazement. 
 
 " Yes," said the woman, " except on one night 
 in the week when my old man comes home earlier, 
 and then I go to bed about eleven o'clock." 
 
 " What extraordinary hours ! " said Violet. 
 " And do all Londoners behave like this ? " 
 
 " God bless you, no ! " said the woman, " of 
 course not. If they did, how would London be 
 carried on ? But, as I told you before, my old man 
 is a printer — a ' comp ' on a daily newspaper, and 
 his time for work is in the night-time. When we 
 were first married, I used to try to go to bed at 
 night like other people and get up like other people, 
 but then I never used to see anything of my young 
 man. So now we both turn night into day and day 
 into night, in the manner o' speaking ; and rare fun 
 it is to see London in the night hours, / can tell 
 you ! " 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 165 
 
 " And must I do the same ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Certainly not," said the woman, "why should 
 you ? It would be bad for you, I fancy. That bright 
 complexion of yours would soon be as muddy as 
 mine if nothing but gaslight fell on it. So you had 
 better go to bed at once. I am going into the New 
 Cut, shopping." 
 
 " Oh, but I couldn't go to sleep. I seem last 
 night to have done all the sleeping I shall want for 
 forty-eight hours. I couldn't possibly go to sleep. 
 Let me go with you." 
 
 The woman readily agreed, and they sallied out 
 together. As they were walking towards the New 
 Cut, Violet remarked that London did not look 
 quite so lively at night as Mrs. Carlish had led her 
 to expect. 
 
 "Wait till you get into the Cut," said she; 
 " you'll find it lively enough then." 
 
 When they turned into the New Cut, Violet no 
 longer thought that London was less noisy in the 
 night than Mrs. Carlish had described it to be. The 
 flaring of the gas-jets inside and outside the shops, 
 the raving of the costermongers at the stalls pro- 
 claiming their wares, the movement of the loiterers 
 on the pavement and in the middle of the street, 
 made Violet feel that Bedlam had been let loose. 
 It turned her quite dizzy, but still, such was the 
 exhilarating effect of life surging round her, that 
 her cheek flushed, her eyes flashed and her blood 
 tingled in the tips of her fingers. 
 
 " Now we'll have a turn over Waterloo Bridge," 
 said Mrs. Carlish, " and see people come out of the 
 theaters — I'm very fond o' doing that — and then 
 
166 i^VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 we'll go west and see the swells coming out o' the 
 clubs and the ladies driving in their carriages from 
 parties and balls." 
 
 On the next day Mrs. Carlish seemed to be so 
 busy that she had little time to gossip with Violet, 
 but when she brought in the frugal dinner that 
 Violet asked for, a dish of the plain fare from the 
 inexhaustible cook-shop, she said, 
 
 " I daresay you haven't forgotten about the 
 theater to-night." 
 
 As they were walking over Waterloo Bridge, it is 
 doubtful if Violet's enthusiasm at going to the 
 theatre for the first time was greater than Mrs. 
 Carlish's enthusiasm at going for the thousandth 
 time. 
 
 " There'll be a crush at the pit door, my dear," 
 she remarked when approaching the theatre, " and 
 when you get to the door-post it's dangerous some- 
 times, you get so squeezed. But we won't try to 
 get in among the first. I don't care for the front 
 row of the pit myself, and I can't imagine why 
 people do rush and crowd to get to the front row 
 of the pit." 
 
 At the theatre Mrs. Carlish's interest in the piece 
 was a good deal disturbed by watching Violet's 
 absorption in it. At the humorous parts there 
 came the ringing laugh that had amazed the woman 
 at the " Punch and Judy " show, and at the 
 pathetic parts the tears would roll down her cheeks 
 until the landlady put her hand into Violet's pocket 
 and took out her handkerchief and wiped them off. 
 This went on through the entire piece. 
 
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 167 
 
 The next day, after dinner, Violet went out alone, 
 and in the direction of Hyde Park. 
 
 Delightful as had Violet's walk been on the pre- 
 vious occasions with the landlady, her enjoyment 
 had been nothing compared with the pleasure she 
 now felt, in which there was an indefinable sense of 
 responsibility, and almost of daring. She was alone, 
 swimming, tossed, as it were, in the great ocean of 
 London life. 
 
 When she reached Hyde Park, she turned by 
 instinct to the Drive, and then to Rotten Row, and 
 her exhilaration was such that it seemed as though 
 quicksilver had been injected into her veins. 
 
 This was the famous Drive and this was the 
 famous Rotten Row of which her father and mother 
 had talked to her. It was here that the high life of 
 London was moving. Those equipages were filled 
 with members of the great families of England — 
 those families which, scarcely more than fifty years 
 ago, she had been told, had been in touch with the 
 Vespries. 
 
 She took one of the chairs and looked on, as 
 though in a dream. Life was indeed wonderful 
 and rich beyond words. 
 
 As she sat there in the park, enjoying the 
 panorama, the thoughts kept coming to her, " The 
 ancestors of scores of these people moving about 
 with these equipages must have known mine, and 
 must have visited Vesprie Towers when it was in its 
 glory. How delightful it would be if some elderly 
 lady, looking idly around her, should cast her eye 
 upon me in this chair and think to herself, ' How 
 very like she is to Miss Vesprie of the Towers, whom 
 
168 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 I knew when I was a girl ! ' and how dehghtful it 
 would be if she were to step out of her carriage and 
 step up to me, and say, ' My dear, is your name 
 Vesprie ? ' and then take me to a palace to 
 dinner where she would give me a beautiful dress, 
 where I should meet ladies of high rank and per- 
 haps members of the royal family ! " But when she 
 got as far as this, she realized the absurdities of her 
 own fancies, and she began to laugh. 
 
 A man stood before her and asked her for pay- 
 ment for her chair. 
 
 " How much ? " said Violet. 
 
 " A penny, please, miss," said the man. 
 
 " A penny — only a penny to see this incompar- 
 able pageant ! " she thought, as she gave the man 
 the coin. 
 
 When her eyes had at last become thoroughly 
 satiated and dazed with the amazing pageantry 
 of the Row, she turned away and walked across the 
 park, and retraced her steps towards her dingy 
 lodgings in Lambeth. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE STRATFORD SLASHER 
 
 An incident now occurred that turned Violet's 
 thoughts into a new and bewildering channel, 
 subsequently changing the whole course of her life. 
 One morning Mrs. Carlish came into her room in a 
 state of suppressed excitement. 
 
 " I've often said to Mr. Carlish how much I'd like 
 to see the famous fair at Stratford, and he has given 
 me a bit of extra housekeeping money and has told 
 me to go down to Stratford for the day and take 
 you along o' me. He's found out all about it. 
 There's a cheap excursion to Stratford on the day 
 of the fair." 
 
 " Oh, I'd love to see Stratford-on-Avon ! That 
 would delight me more than anything. I know 
 many of Shakespeare's plays almost by heart, as 
 I've often told you." 
 
 " I thought it would please you, my dear. Why, 
 it must be as glorious as Bartholomew's Fair, from 
 all Mr. Carlish, who's been there more than once, 
 has many o' times told me." 
 
 A week later, they started on their excursion, and 
 reached Stratford soon after midday. 
 
 A stranger picture than that which met Violet's 
 eyes, when she and Mrs. Carlish left the station and 
 made their way into the streets of Shakespeare's 
 town, could hardly be imagined. 
 
170 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 The pleasure boats and canoes on the river 
 attracted Violet more than any other sight, but 
 Mrs. Carlish's taste showed itself most forcibly in 
 one of the streets where oxen were being roasted in 
 the open air, and being, moreover, devoured by the 
 hungry crowd. It appealed strongly to this lively 
 woman's sense of humour. 
 
 The din was becoming somewhat intolerable to 
 Violet in this part of the town, and she had just 
 proposed to Mrs. Carlish that they should pay a 
 visit to the church, where the sounds would be 
 softened for a while, when suddenly a great commo- 
 tion struck upon their ears, and presently there 
 came in view a man standing up in a carriage 
 with four horses bedizened with white favours. 
 And he seemed to be throwing something about, 
 apparently coppers, while the people near him 
 were leaving everything else to scramble for 
 them. 
 
 From the place where Mrs. Carlish and Violet 
 stood, under the shadows of the church limes, the 
 motley picture could be easily seen, while they were 
 in a great degree hidden from observers. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish was about to ask a bystander what 
 the noise meant, w^hen some one within earshot 
 cried out excitedly — 
 
 " They're sovereigns ! He's throwing sovereigns 
 about. It's Jerry Redwood, the Stratford Slasher — 
 the prize-fighter what went to 'Straly and have 
 made a gigantic fortune, partly by gold-digging 
 and partly by buying land. He's just come back 
 with his pockets stuffed full o' 'Stralian gold, and he 
 is throwing the guineas about like farthings ! He's 
 
THE STRATFORD SLASHER 171 
 
 hired a carriage and pair with postilHons at the Red 
 Horse Hotel, with ribbons like a wedding." 
 
 " A rum go," said a girl. " But do you believe, 
 though, in the Slasher's money ? " 
 
 " Yes, he's made his pile fast enough. But I 
 think he's off his nut. He looks as much of a 
 drinking man as ever, and I reckon this must be 
 all delirium tremens. A sensible man of money 
 don't play the fool like that ! " 
 
 Several of the Stratford townspeople now came 
 up in great excitement at the knowledge that money 
 was being thrown about. 
 
 " What do you think I saw him do a little while 
 ago ? " said one. " He finished a kind of drunken 
 speech about the way in which he had made his 
 money by pulling out a five-pound note, putting it 
 between two slices of bread and butter, and eating it 
 with one of the hot sausages they were cooking 
 yonder." 
 
 Some in the crowd were struck silent by such 
 revelations of money squandering ; but the effect 
 upon Mrs. Carlish was quite startling. She broke 
 into an hysterical laugh and pressed Violet's hand 
 tightly in her own. 
 
 At this moment the man threw some gold into 
 the great dripping-pan under the roasting rother. 
 And what a rush there was then to get the sovereigns 
 out of the gravy ! And then the man, with a loud, 
 uproarious laugh, said, 
 
 " Stratford folk stirring up the rother's gravy to 
 find the Stratford Slasher's sovereigns ! " 
 
 " Look," called out an excited bystander, " they 
 are actually pulling the postboys from the horses 
 
172 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 and unyoking the horses from the carriage ; and 
 now they are dragging the carriage themselves 
 towards this way. That's the Stratford band," 
 he continued as the music struck up. " The Slasher 
 has hired it to march in front of the procession and 
 play ' See, the Conquering Hero Comes ! ' " 
 
 Several of the people standing round made a rush 
 towards the procession. 
 
 " Stop here, my dear," said Mrs. Carlish, still 
 clutching Violet's hand, " he's coming towards the 
 church ; this is the best place — yes, that's what we'll 
 do, stop here." 
 
 " No, no ! " said Violet. " Come away — do come 
 away ! " 
 
 But Mrs. Carlish did not hear the appeal, for the 
 noise of the cracked band drew nearer — a noise 
 harsh and discordant — and drowned Violet's voice. 
 As the strange spectacle came towards the church, 
 Violet could distinguish the man more plainly. He 
 was about sixty years of age, a colossal, navvy-like 
 looking fellow, whose great ruddy face, though shin- 
 ing as if lubricated by alcohol, showed that he must 
 at one time have been strikingly handsome. In the 
 corner of his mouth was a cigar of enormous size. 
 On the seat beside him were a tumbler and a bottle 
 of ale, and at the bottom of the carriage there were 
 several bottles. When the carriage stopped, he put 
 his hand in his pocket, and taking out a handful 
 of sovereigns, tossed them into the street. 
 
 " That's it — scramble for 'em, Stratford folk," 
 he cried out, in a hoarse contemptuous tone. 
 " Scramble for 'em ! " 
 
 This proceeding, however, arrested the progress 
 
THE STRATFORD SLASHER 173 
 
 of the carriage, for the men who were dragging it 
 immediately left it and joined in the scramble. 
 
 " Come back ! " cried the Slasher. " Let the 
 others have a chance ! If you don't come back at 
 once, not another darned quid shall you get from 
 me ! That's the way," he continued, " that's the 
 way ! — But where' s my boy ? " 
 
 Suddenly he caught sight of a tall, handsome 
 young fellow in the crowd. He was coming towards 
 the carriage, a look of intense anger upon his flushed 
 face. 
 
 " Why, what the blazes does this mean? " said 
 the Slasher. " Glad to see me I thought you'd be, 
 but I never thought you'd be so upset as this ! 
 Why, he's the model of the Stratford Slasher what 
 used to be, and the Bendigo millionaire as is ! All 
 the time I was making my pile I was sayin' to 
 m'self, ' You've got a millionaire for a father. I'll 
 soon be coming home, my boy, and we'll let bygones 
 be bygones.' " 
 
 The young man stood silent, with clenched fists. 
 Suddenly he turned deadly pale. He had caught 
 sight of Violet in the crowd. 
 
 The moment their eyes met she knew him. It 
 was Martin Redwood, Lawrie's friend. In an 
 instant memories of the osier feast flashed across 
 her mind, and the whole scene rose up vividly before 
 her. The mother's angry utterances, her revela- 
 tions concerning INIartin's guardianship in the old 
 days while she was living alone in the home of her 
 ancestors at Vesprie Towers, every word that the 
 woman had spoken, came rushing back upon her 
 recollection. " He has been giving all his life to 
 
174 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 you without your knowing it . . . Who was it 
 used to light your fire in the morning and clean 
 your shoes ? . . . He never slept in the cottage 
 ... he would go creeping up to the great house and 
 sleep in the kitchen, just to protect you ! . . . and 
 now you are too proud to follow the game . . ." 
 
 Then came the recollection of how she had taken 
 up the osier rod and had stepped towards him, and 
 how she had rested her hand upon his hair and 
 kissed him on the forehead. Then, stranger still, 
 she recalled her own unspoken words, " The eyes 
 are the same that came to me in my dream . . . 
 the Vesprie luck ! " 
 
 " Come up to the chay, my boy — come up to 
 the chay." And the Slasher began to throw some 
 more sovereigns out. " There they go — that's the 
 way to do it ! Money ain't no objeck to Jerry 
 Redwood, the Stratford Slasher as was, and the 
 Bendigo millionaire as is ! Stratford folk ! " he 
 continued in the same contemptuous tone, " this 
 is a good sight for the Stratford Slasher's eyes ! 
 This is the sight that I see'd, in thought like, many 
 a time when I wur at the diggin's — ay, many a time." 
 
 And he then threw out some more sovereigns, 
 and there was another scramble. 
 
 " When I wur a-makin' my pile, I wur sayin' to 
 mysel' every day an' a'most every hour, ' I always 
 knows I can work when I've got anything to work 
 for, and now I'll work like a 'oss, now the chance 
 has come to me o' makin' my pile ! An' I'll go to 
 Stratford, where I wur born, and I'll throw the 
 quids among 'em, an' I'll eat sandwiches o' five- 
 
THE STRATFORD SLASHER 175 
 
 pun notes, an' I'll make Stratford folk duck an' bow 
 to me ' — an' I've done it ! Martin, my boy, why 
 the blazes don't you come up to the chay ? " 
 
 But the Slasher's day-dream in Australia proved 
 somewhat different from what he anticipated. His 
 son was staring at the yellow flash of the sovereigns 
 in the sunlight with horror and loathing. He 
 looked at that moment as though he had the 
 greatest difficulty in restraining himself from 
 springing at the man's throat and strangling him. 
 His face clearly showed that in his sight his father 
 was far more unwelcome seated there, mad with 
 drink, throwing away his gold, than he would have 
 been had he returned to England a pauper. 
 
 The Slasher glared at his son in blank amazement. 
 With intelligence enough to realize the omni- 
 potence of wealth, he had fully expected that his 
 son would leap upon him with joy at the idea of 
 sharing his riches. 
 
 The Slasher now got down from the carriage and 
 went up to the boy. 
 
 " Who are you a-scowlin' at ? Do you know 
 you're the son o' the man as could buy up old 
 Stratford ten times over — yis, all the lot ! Yis, 
 and buy up Vesprie Towers and Vesprie Park and 
 Vesprie lands what you was alius a-talking about — 
 Yis, every blarm'd acre ! Yis, that's what / could 
 do ! "WTien I w^as a-buildin' up my pile, I says to 
 m'self many's the time, *I'll go back to Stratford, 
 and I'll buy up all that's worth buying, and I'll take 
 it away to 'Straly. I'll buy the house where Shake- 
 speare wur born, and I'll take it away, brick for 
 brick and beam for beam, and I'll build it up on my 
 
176 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 estate at Sydney, and I'll run a Shakespeare show. 
 And I'll buy up all the Shakespeare relicks. I'm 
 afraid I can't buy the church,' sez I, 'but I may 
 p'haps be able to buy Shakespeare's image.' " 
 
 When the man mentioned the Vesprie lands, 
 Violet, who had overheard every word, began to 
 tremble violently, and a look of wild excitement 
 came into her face. 
 
 " Come away ! I can't bear it — come away ! " 
 
 Mrs. Carlish, although understanding nothing of 
 all Violet's extraordinary emotion, saw that the 
 scene that surrounded this mad drunkard was 
 becoming serious. She grew alarmed, and led 
 Violet hastily away towards another part of the 
 town, where the more pleasing sound of laughter 
 and the barking of sheep-dogs as they approached 
 the cattle and sheep fair was mingled with the 
 distant thumping of the drums, and the clang of the 
 cymbals, from the brass band of the menagerie at 
 the pleasure fair. For each fair was divided off 
 from the others into separate patches of bustling 
 activity. Circuses, menageries, theatres, merry-go- 
 rounds, dancing booths and boxing booths could 
 all be seen in their various movements and colour. 
 
 They passed through the sheep fair with some 
 difficulty. But when they reached the cattle fair, 
 where the bullocks were yoked to a long line of 
 poles, there was no getting through it at all, and 
 they were obliged to skirt round it. It was not, 
 however, until they reached the horse fair that 
 Violet began to show any interest in what was going 
 on. She seemed like one in a trance. But the 
 sight of the horses being trotted and galloped up 
 
THE STRATFORD SLASHER 177 
 
 and down between two rows of horse-dealers, 
 grooms, and farmers brought back to mind her 
 childhood and a day with her father and Lawrie at 
 Thornton fair. 
 
 When they reached the cheese and onion fair, 
 with great piles of cheeses ranged one on the top of 
 another, until they looked like fragments of classical 
 stone columns, and the strings of onions gleaming 
 like vast ropes of pearls in the sunshine, Mrs. 
 Carlish said, 
 
 " That's a putty sight, my dear. That's a picture 
 that 'ud be hard to beat ! Ain't it, now ? " 
 
 But all these were nothing in Mrs. Carlish's eyes 
 compared with the pleasure fair, where great 
 masses of people, mostly from the surrounding 
 villages, were bustling in and out of the great tent 
 in which circus-riders were performing, or standing 
 in dense masses before Womb well's menagerie, and 
 staring up in open-mouth wonderment at the 
 vast pictures of leopards leaping through hoops, 
 lions cowering beneath the whip of the lion- 
 tamer, giraffes feeding upon palm trees, performing 
 elephants, etc., or else watching the dancing of the 
 strolling actors, who had come out on the exterior 
 stage between the performances — pirates, bucca- 
 neers, kilted Scottish kings, and clowns — dancing 
 and singing : 
 
 " In this farmyard, in this farmyard, 
 The donkey twirls his tail, 
 Hee-haw — hee-haw, chuckerbuck, 
 
 Chuckerbuck too, 
 Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle, 
 
 Cock-a-doodle-doo ! " 
 
 V.T. N 
 
178 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Ah, I know that old song," said Mrs. CarKsh, 
 and she began to hum it under her breath. 
 
 So interested was Mrs. CarHsh in all that was 
 going on around her that it was some time before 
 she took serious notice of Violet's altered appear- 
 ance and manner. 
 
 " Why, my dear, how bad you look ! Are you 
 ill ? " 
 
 " I'm very tired," said Violet in a faint voice. 
 " Shall we go home now ? " 
 
 The good-natured woman at once assented, and 
 they soon reached the railway station ; and 
 presently to Violet's relief they were starting on 
 their return journey to London. Mrs. Carlish 
 talked volubly all the way home about the fair, but 
 scarcely a word in response fell from Violet. She 
 seemed lost in thought. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 
 
 So exciting were the glories of London, and so 
 inexperienced was Violet in the outlay of money in 
 town lodgings, that she failed to keep that strict 
 watch on her purse which she had always done at 
 Vesprie Towers. 
 
 At first Mrs. Carlish evidently thought that she 
 had found a treasure in a young lady with unlimited 
 supplies of hard cash, and for a time she gave Violet 
 no hint as to economising ; but when Violet's little 
 store melted down to thirty-five shillings, the quick- 
 eyed little woman began to see that her lodger was 
 beginning to feel uncomfortable about something. 
 Serious reflections, indeed, had come to Violet as 
 to ways and means. 
 
 " Seems to me," the woman thought to herself, 
 " that there's a look in the dear young thing's face, 
 that always comes when the oof's a bit low. I 
 should like to speak to her about it, but I'm afear'd 
 to do so. I should like to say to her, ' Excuse me, 
 my dear, but for the last few days I have noticed 
 from your face that funds are getting short. I 
 don't suppose there is any thing / can do to put you 
 in the way of earning money. But if there is, you 
 know, say the word.' " 
 
 Violet's experience of Mrs. Carlish was that she 
 
180 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 was a good-natured, careless, happy-go-lucky, 
 Cockney woman of a type that in England is only 
 seen in London, and at last she confided in her as to 
 her impecuniosity and fears of the future. 
 
 " Well, I was beginning to think that it was so, 
 my dear. But never say die ! I've often had as 
 bad a look-out as anybody. Still, though I'm no 
 chicken, I've never wanted a meal in my life. I've 
 generally managed to get a good dinner at the 
 eating-house and a noggin o' gin and ' know-you ' 
 on the top of it. Of course, yours'll be a tougher 
 game than mine, 'cos you're a lady." 
 
 " Why is that ? " said Violet. 
 
 " It's all very well to be a lady when your pocket's 
 full, but it's a very different game when it's empty. 
 Lady-like looks and lady-like ways is sadly against 
 you then. I was reading, only the other day, what 
 the Family 'Erald said in its wisdom column upon 
 this very same thing, and I left it in the room with 
 the corner turned down, thinking you might like 
 to take and read it." 
 
 And she took up the soiled, greasy periodical and 
 handed it to Violet. It was a short extract from a 
 book that once had a vogue and now is forgotten — 
 Sir Arthur Helps' essays. 
 
 " Vulgarity is as good as an income. For see 
 what advantages a vulgar man has. He can push 
 ^is fortunes without even knowing that he is push- 
 ing them. He can ask and refuse, and haggle and 
 barter, and do any disagreeable or dirty work, 
 without exhausting himself by it. In dealing with 
 the world, he is in his true element. He flatters 
 heartily, without knowing that his flattery is an 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 181 
 
 impertinence. For himself he can swallow praise 
 like a pig its provender ; and no want of refinement 
 prevents him from enjoying the coarsest enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 " Parents who care for the material success and 
 for the rude happiness of their children should 
 pray that they may be sufficiently vulgar, and 
 should always give them a good example in that 
 respect." 
 
 While Violet was reading these words, which 
 applied so terribly to her own condition, Mrs. 
 Carlish was called away by a tradesman's boy at 
 the door, and this gave Violet an opportunity of 
 thinking over the good woman's words. 
 
 Violet naturally thought of what, in most cases, 
 is the first thought of women in those circum- 
 stances. She bethought herself of the needle, and 
 when Mrs. Carlish returned she consulted her. 
 
 " My dear young lady," said Mrs. Carlish, " have 
 you any idea what getting a living by the needle 
 means ? " 
 
 " Not the slightest," said Violet, " but I have 
 been taught plain needlework, and I am sure my 
 eyes are so strong and my health is so good that I 
 could do as much work as another woman." 
 
 "Yes, but the pay!" said Mrs. Carlish. "The 
 pay ! You're not the first lady I've known that 
 has been hard-up. And I have noticed that the 
 reason why hard-up-ness is worse for them than for 
 folks that are born hard-up is just this — that they 
 find it a stiff job to learn the valy o' coppers. To 
 them as arn't born hard-up a penny don't seem to ha' 
 got any clear meanin' — they've been used to think 
 
182 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 in silver instead o' copper. A penny is a kind of a 
 counter, and six of 'em can be changed into a pretty 
 little coin which we call sixpence, a pretty little 
 thing that will buy things, and two of these six- 
 pences can be changed into a shilling, and this'll 
 buy more things. Now a person that's born hard- 
 up and thinks in coppers can make a shilling go 
 twice as far as one as thinks in silver." 
 
 Violet smiled as she said, 
 
 " But I was born in the state that you call hard- 
 up-ness, and although I belong to a great family, 
 and have always lived in a great house belonging 
 to my family, a penny has always meant to me what 
 it is to those who were born in a state of hard-up- 
 ness, and I have always known well what a penny 
 will buy." 
 
 Mrs. Carlish now told Violet what a needlewoman 
 could earn a day, even supposing it were possible to 
 get work. 
 
 " Horrible ! " said Violet. " It is this very 
 knowledge of mine of the value of coppers that 
 begins to frighten me. It seems to me like a bad 
 dream. Surely the ladies that one sees driving 
 about so richly clad would find their clothes burn 
 their skin like the shirt of Nessus if they realized 
 that needlewomen are paid like this ! " 
 
 Violet then took the little woman still further 
 into her confidence, and told her of the struggle 
 with genteel poverty of which she knew so much. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Carlish, " your experience 
 has made you different from other ladies of your 
 rank. I'm afraid that any one of us would be made 
 as selfish by being rich as any one of the ladies that 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 183 
 
 wear on their backs the dresses made by poor 
 needlewomen." 
 
 A day or two later, Mrs. Carlish rapped at the 
 parlour door. On entering the room, the way in 
 which she took a chair indicated that she had 
 something important to communicate to Violet. 
 
 " I've been thinking a good deal," said she, " over 
 what we talked about the other day, and I spoke 
 about you to a friend of mine. She is the wife of a 
 ' super ' at Drury Lane. She was once a lady herself 
 — at least she was a lady's maid who knows a good 
 deal of the world, and she told me of something that 
 she thinks would suit you down to the ground." 
 
 " Oh, I wonder what it is ? " said Violet, all excite- 
 ment. "Do make haste and tell me what it is. 
 What a true friend you are, to be sure ! " 
 
 " Well, when she was first married she was as fine a 
 young woman as you'd see in London, and she'd see'd 
 a lot o' ladies and noticed their ways in everything. 
 And when the London season was on she used to 
 make a respectable lot o' money out o' the West-end 
 shops by having shawls and things tried on her." 
 
 Violet's countenance fell. 
 
 " I could not do it," she said, " I really could not ! 
 I would rather become a slave of the needle, or 
 perform the most menial offices, provided that my 
 degradation were not advertised and exposed to the 
 public gaze ; but to stand in a London shop, to have 
 shawls and mantles thrown over my shoulders for 
 the inspection of vulgar people ..." 
 
 " But you don't mean that all well-to-do people 
 are vulgar ? " said Mrs. Carlish. 
 
184 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " I have nearly come to think so," said poor 
 Violet, mournfully, " I really could not do it." 
 
 " It would not be in a shop — leastways not exactly 
 in a shop," said the landlady. " It would be in a 
 kind of private room, a sale-room, upon a different 
 floor from the shop. When a very expensive shawl 
 — a tip-topper — is to be sold, you would be called 
 from another room and told to try it on." 
 
 " And for what reason ? " said Violet. " Why 
 should it be thrown over my shoulders rather than 
 over the shoulders of another shop-girl, Mrs. 
 Carlish ? For a shop-girl I should be, of course." 
 
 Mrs. Carlish smiled. 
 
 " My dear," said she, " you will make me speak 
 plainly to you, though you may think me rude. It's 
 your fine figure." 
 
 " Oh, please don't talk about my figure," said 
 Violet. 
 
 " W^hy not? You ought to be proud of it! 
 Anyhow, it's worth something to you. 'Sides," 
 she said suddenly, "beggars cannot be choosers. 
 I can see no other way ! " 
 
 The result of the conversation was that Violet 
 agreed to the landlady's idea, and it was arranged 
 that the "super's "wife should go to the shop-manager 
 and speak to him on the subject of engaging Violet at 
 the large West-end establishment. But when the 
 landlady had left her, Violet's fortitude gave way, 
 and she buried her face in her hands and began to 
 sob as though her heart would break. 
 
 And so it came about that Violet obtained a 
 place at the Costume Establishment through the 
 influence of Mrs. Carlish' s friend. 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 185 
 
 At the end of the season, Violet was told that, in 
 spite of her superb figure, the principal of the West- 
 end shop had decided that she would not be 
 required any longer. 
 
 Violet fully understood why this was ; she had 
 been quite unable to succumb to the insolence of 
 the vulgar nouveaux riches w^ho patronized the 
 place. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish's ingenuity was, in consequence, 
 again called into requisition, and it was not long 
 before that busy brain of hers devised something 
 else. 
 
 One morning she came into Violet's room and 
 said, 
 
 " Well, I've done it for you. I've got you a place 
 as book-folder. The pay isn't big, but if you have 
 now learnt to think in coppers, you'll be able to keep 
 body and soul together with it." 
 
 " How much is it ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Fifteen shillings a week." 
 
 " Fifteen shillings a week ! " said poor Violet, 
 aghast, " why that will do very little more than 
 pay my rent." 
 
 " Why, you don't suppose you can keep on these 
 rooms, my dear, do you ? " said the landlady. 
 " All you can afford is the third floor back. And 
 then, I believe, you'll have to do without a fire, 
 except in the very coldest weather." 
 
 And so Violet began to live anew as a book-folder. 
 The kind of girl that she was now brought into 
 contact with was of the class called factory girl, 
 who turned from one occupation to another as 
 business fluctuated. 
 
186 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 But presently a severe blow came upon Violet, 
 Owing to Mrs. Carlish's husband having lost his 
 situation on the daily paper, and owing to his 
 having to go on a Manchester paper, she had to leave 
 London and live in Manchester. This was a very 
 great loss to Violet, for she had become quite 
 attached to the good-natured little vulgarian. 
 
 And as to the poor little woman herself, her grief 
 at leaving London made her quite ill. To be torn 
 by the roots from the London soil and planted else- 
 where was unthinkable. 
 
 " I would ask you to come with us," she said to 
 Violet, with tears in her eyes, " for there must be as 
 good an opening for you there as in London, but I 
 feel that I am not going there to stay. I am certain 
 I should pine away there, and my old man says he 
 will soon be able to get another post on a London 
 paper." 
 
 For a time, after the departure of Mrs. Carlish, 
 Violet was able to occupy the " third floor back " of 
 the new tenant of the house, and she got several 
 letters from her old friend full of wailings about her 
 " transportation," as she called it, and full of kind- 
 ness to her late lodger, always concluding with the 
 fervent hope of getting back to London. 
 
 These letters were as garrulous as her talk, but 
 not without a certain kind of practical wisdom. 
 
 For two years Violet led a wretched hand-to- 
 mouth existence. And, of course, day by day 
 matters grew worse with her, and day by day her 
 poor clothes grew poorer, for she had but scant 
 means of renewing'them. 
 
A STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 187 
 
 It may not be easy for the reader to realize fully 
 the disastrous effects of this growing shabbiness of 
 dress upon Violet's fortunes, and also upon her own 
 mind. 
 
 De Quincey says that the most absolutely helpless 
 creature moving about in the streets of London is 
 an educated gentleman without a farthing in his 
 pocket. There is nothing that such a man can turn 
 his hand to. Such potentialities as a bread-winner 
 that may be latent within him are stifled and killed 
 by a perfect impecuniosity. His very education 
 and accomplishments are in the way. 
 
 But if these w^ords are true of a penniless gentle- 
 man, what is to be said of a delicate-minded, high- 
 born and educated girl with only a few shillings in 
 her pocket, and without a friend to recommend her ? 
 Every door she passes in the street is an iron gate 
 shutting her away from the comforts and amenities 
 of life. 
 
 Violet was very clever in a hundred ways, and 
 there were many things she could have done that 
 would have brought her as much earnings as she 
 required. She would have made a good amanuensis, 
 she could have taught English and French and 
 music, if she had only been in a position from which 
 she could approach the well-to-do world. But 
 situated as she was it was impossible to get near to 
 that world ; she was drifting away from it, and 
 even an attic in Lambeth grew to be a luxury she 
 could no longer afford. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 LIFE IN BRICK ALLEY 
 
 Another year went by. Violet Vesprie was now 
 reduced to living in a squalid place called Brick 
 Alley. 
 
 Brick Court would have been a more appropriate 
 name, for it was a squalid square court of consider- 
 able size — so large, indeed, that the sunshine did 
 really at times find its way there. The doors of all 
 the tenements were wide open and apparently 
 fastened back, a fact which showed that each tene- 
 ment was let out, either in floors or in single rooms. 
 When the sun did pierce into the court, there was 
 generally a slatternly woman squatting at the doors 
 and children squatting round her. Across each of 
 the four corners of the court, clothes-lines were 
 hung, from which dingy linen dangled. 
 
 Squalid as the place was, the dirty children 
 seemed to get considerable pleasure out of their 
 queer lives. They seemed, indeed, to get more 
 enjoyment out of their home-made dolls, fashioned 
 from all sorts of things — sometimes a little bundle 
 of rags, sometimes an old slipper, sometimes merely 
 a piece of wood with a piece of rag wrapped round 
 it — than Violet used to get in her childish days out of 
 her wax doll with its movable blue eyes. And the 
 excitement of the little owner with the carriage 
 
LIFE IN BRICK ALLEY 189 
 
 made of a broken old soap-box, and the little dinner 
 parties of mud pies, served up on fragments of 
 broken plates, was quite as great as the excitement 
 evinced at any Christmas-tree party in Belgravia. 
 
 It was the genuine simple interest that Violet 
 showed as she lingered to watch these children at 
 their play, coupled no doubt with her superb beauty 
 and figure, that made the women of the court take 
 to her and shield her from the rough ways of the 
 men. 
 
 On one occasion a dirty slovenly woman of 
 terrible drinking habits made a furious attack upon 
 a young fellow who spoke a saucy word to Violet as 
 she was stepping through the children to go to her 
 room. Her beauty, indeed, now proved a frequent 
 source of distress. 
 
 No one knew Violet's name or sought to know it. 
 Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable than the 
 manner in which people fall into the way of life in 
 any sort of environment in which they may be 
 thrown. The tenements in Brick Alley were mainly 
 occupied by factory girls, flower girls, coster girls, 
 and street waifs, scarcely any one of whom had any 
 knowledge of the antecedents of their fellows, nor 
 did they exhibit the faintest curiosity as to those 
 antecedents. As to the unmarried girls, many of 
 them seemed to have no surnames at all, for they 
 were always called by their Christian names — Susie, 
 Jessie, or Bessie, as the case might be. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 
 
 While still living in that " third floor back " in 
 the Lambeth lodging-house, Violet had received a 
 letter from Mrs. Carlish announcing that it was not 
 unlikely that she and her " old man " would soon 
 be again in London. 
 
 This had been welcome news for Violet, and when 
 the stress of poverty had forced her to leave her 
 Lambeth lodging, she had asked the landlady to take 
 in any letters that might come for her and keep 
 them until she called for them. For she had by 
 this time learnt how the destinies of the poor are 
 governed by the chapter of accidents, and knowing 
 Mrs. Carlish's erratic ways, and knowing, besides, 
 how difficult it might be for her to live in the same 
 lodgings for any length of time, she had taken the 
 precaution to write to Mrs. Carlish and say that 
 from this day forward she would go at ten o'clock 
 on every Wednesday evening to the corner of 
 Burleigh Street, Strand, with the hope of meeting 
 her there sooner or later. 
 
 Mrs. Carlish promptly replied, promising to go to 
 the appointed place on the first Wednesday of her 
 return to London. But although Violet went on 
 Wednesday night after Wednesday night to the 
 place of rendezvous, no Mrs. Carlish made her 
 appearance. She would often stand there for an 
 
A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 191 
 
 hour at a time ; still no Mrs. Carlish. At last she 
 wrote to Manchester, and instead of receiving an 
 answer, she had her letter returned through the 
 Dead Letter office. 
 
 " She is in London then," Violet thought, " and 
 she will certainly go to the appointed place, and I 
 must never miss a Wednesday night now." 
 
 She had made no friends since she lost Mrs. 
 Carlish, and her desire to see her old friend increased 
 daily. Every Wednesday night, therefore, wet or 
 fine, Violet went to Burleigh Street without fail, 
 sustained by the forlorn hope that she might see 
 among the passers-by the cheerful face of Mrs. 
 Carlish. 
 
 One Wednesday night, while she was waiting 
 there, she became conscious that another girl had 
 come near her and was standing by her side. 
 
 Something in the girl's face struck Violet. She 
 could not have said what it was, but the more she 
 looked at the face the more it interested her. 
 
 At this moment, a somew^hat elderly woman, 
 accompanied by a young girl, came up also and 
 stood at this corner. The woman's face was as 
 repugnant to Violet as the face of the girl she had 
 been watching was attractive ; and she was some- 
 what shocked to see the woman go up to her and 
 address her as an acquaintance. 
 
 Touching the girl on the shoulder the woman said, 
 
 " Now, my dear, why don't you come along 'er 
 
 us. You know very well that you ain't got no 
 
 home to go to, and I'll find a nice comfortable one 
 
 for you." 
 
 " Leave me alone," said the girl. " I told you 
 
192 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 before that I wouldn't go with you. I know what 
 you want. I've seen you a-talking to other girls. 
 Leave me alone." 
 
 Then the old woman called up the second girl 
 whom she had brought with her, and immediately 
 changed her voice to an angry bullying tone. 
 
 " You shall come," said she, " You know you 
 owe me a lot of money. You owe me for the things 
 you are wearing, you do ! Don't she, Sal ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Sal, but with an impudent devil-may- 
 care look on her face that showed she was lying. 
 
 Then, turning to the trembling girl, she added, 
 " Come along. Don't be a fool. There's a nice 
 supper for both of us, and a good bed in the 
 bargain ! " 
 
 The woman now gripped the girl roughly by the 
 arm, who wrenched herself away in evident terror. 
 
 The woman and her companion then again 
 advanced towards the girl, and would no doubt have 
 again seized her by the arm, but Violet stepped 
 between them and said, " Let the girl alone. You 
 shall not touch her. She is evidently ill. Let her 
 alone ! " 
 
 It was not so much Violet's commanding figure 
 and dauntless bearing that cowed the two as the 
 authoritative ring in her voice. The instinct of 
 class within them acknowledged that voice, and they 
 stopped and gazed at her. Turning to the girl, 
 Violet said, "It is not true that you owe this 
 woman money, is it ? " 
 
 " No, no ! Of course I don't ! I don't even 
 know where they live. I don't know nothing about 
 them." 
 
A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 193 
 
 At this moment a policeman came up, much to 
 the dismay of the woman and her accompHce. 
 
 " Now, old she-devil," said he, " I ought to run 
 you in, I did, and I've half a mind to do it, too." 
 
 '' I've done nothing," said the woman, with a 
 scared look. 
 
 " Be off, then, unless you want another six 
 months hard ! AVhat are you a- waiting here for ? " 
 said the policeman, looking round suddenly at 
 Violet. 
 
 " I was trying to protect this poor girl against 
 
 those bad women." 
 
 " All right, miss," and with a satisfied nod he 
 turned away and strolled down the Strand. 
 
 " \Miere do you live ? " said Violet, addressing 
 the girl, who still lingered near her. 
 
 " Nowhere." 
 
 " Then where are you going ? " 
 
 " I knows of a court off Drury Lane, where flower- 
 girls live. The house doors is always on the latch. 
 I'm going to creep in at one of them and sleep on the 
 stairs. I've done it afore, many's the time." 
 
 Violet gave her a few coppers, and the girl, 
 gazing into Violet's face with a look of speechless 
 gratitude, hurried away. 
 
 While Violet was still speaking to the girl, two 
 young men who had just come out of the Lyceum 
 Theatre strolled by, glancing about them down the 
 Strand for a hansom cab. One of them was a tall, 
 well-set-up, dark-eyed young fellow, with a small 
 black moustache. His companion was somewhat 
 shorter, with a close-shaven face and refined features 
 
 " By Jove look there, look at that superb girl ! " 
 
194 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 said the tall man, glancing round over his friend's 
 shoulder. " Did you ever see anything so lovely ? 
 What a confounded pity it seems to see such a girl 
 as that out here." 
 
 " She certainly is a beauty ! " said the shorter 
 man. " She beats 'em all, you know ! " 
 
 The two then walked up to Violet, and the taller 
 man's eyes became fixed on Violet's face, as if 
 fascinated. Some sudden deep movement seemed 
 to be going on within him, as could be seen by the 
 colour leaving his cheeks. 
 
 " Arthur," said he to the other one, " that is the 
 most glorious creature I ever saw in my life. By 
 Jove ! What a pity, though ! But I must speak 
 to her " 
 
 " No, no ! Don't be a fool. Come along. 
 There's an empty cab over there, just pulled up at 
 the corner." 
 
 Violet, who had been waiting for a break in the 
 crowd of vehicles to cross the road, now seized a 
 chance. 
 
 " I'm going to follow her," said the taller man» 
 And he stepped across the road, in spite of his 
 friend's dissent. 
 
 The shorter man, with a reluctant step, went after 
 him. They easily overtook Violet, for on reaching 
 the other side of the pavement, she stopped and 
 looked back for an omnibus, quite unaware that 
 she was being followed. 
 
 " That was a very kind act of yours," said the 
 taller man, reaching Violet's side. " You have been 
 a real kind friend to that poor girl, I'm sure." 
 
 Violet's mind was so filled with the incident that 
 
A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 195 
 
 she did not seem to notice being accosted by a 
 stranger, and she answered the man with entire 
 frankness. 
 
 " Poor thing," she said, " she seemed to me very 
 ill. I'm sorry now that I did not ask her to come 
 home with me and stay the night." 
 
 " And where may your home be ? " said the man 
 in a tone of voice that could not be mistaken, even by 
 so unsuspicious and innocent-minded a girl as Violet. 
 
 She turned sharply round and looked into the 
 young fellow's face, with a flash of anger in her eyes, 
 and then walked away without a word down a side 
 street, quickening her step. 
 
 " What a stunner ! " said he, turning towards 
 his friend who had by this time overtaken him. 
 " By Jove ! did you notice her voice ? It had the 
 accent of a lady. I wonder what she was before 
 she turned to this." 
 
 " Don't follow her," said the other. " You seem 
 to have quite lost your head, you fool ; don't follow 
 her." 
 
 The man, however, stepped out briskly, and over- 
 taking her, placed his hand upon her shoulder. 
 " You're a noble girl," he muttered, bending close 
 to her ear, " won't you give me your address ? " 
 
 Violet started as though she had been stung by a 
 snake, and grew deadly pale. She again turned 
 round and faced the man, her fist clenched as if 
 with the thought to strike him. 
 
 Of a sudden, as if he had sprung up out of the 
 ground, a powerfully built man in sailor's garb 
 grasped Violet's persecutor by the shoulder with an 
 iron grip that made the fellow wince. 
 
 O 2 
 
196 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " You cur ! " said he in a low voice, choked with 
 passion. " How dare you ? You cowardly hound ! " 
 
 " Hands off ! " said the young fellow, shaking 
 himself free from the sailor's clutch, " and take 
 that ! " 
 
 And he struck a fierce blow at the other's face. 
 
 But he quickly discovered, skilful boxer though 
 he seemed to be, that he had met with more than 
 his match. A well-directed blow on the sailor's 
 part staggered the man, and he would have dropped 
 like a stricken ox had not his friend caught him as 
 he reeled backward, his face covered with blood. 
 A ring of spectators had already gathered round. 
 
 " What's up ? " said a policeman, edging his way 
 through the crowd. 
 
 " It's nothing," said the shorter of the two men, 
 drawing the policeman aside and giving him his card. 
 " My friend stumbled and has cut his face. It's 
 nothing at all, constable." 
 
 " All right," said the policeman, saluting him as 
 he glanced at the card which the young fellow 
 slipped, with a gold piece, into his hand. " All 
 right, m' lord. A little mistake o' mine. I'll call a 
 hansom. Your friend looks a bit queer." 
 
 And he turned away, in search of a cab. Mean- 
 while, Violet, scarcely pausing to witness the result 
 of the conflict, escaped from the crowd and 
 hurriedly reached the Strand. There was an 
 omnibus passing at the moment. She sprang into 
 it, and finding a corner seat vacant at the further 
 end, settled down, half-dazed and trembling with 
 agitation. 
 
 When she had in a measure recovered from the 
 
A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 197 
 
 nervous shock that the distressful incident had 
 caused her, she suddenly recalled to mind the face 
 of the sailor who had come with such timeliness to 
 her aid. 
 
 It was the face of Martin Redwood ! 
 
 She half-rose, with an impulsive thought to hasten 
 back and thank him. But a natural fear of any 
 possible sequel to that repugnant episode made her 
 tremble anew and sink down again with a shrinking 
 sense of dread. 
 
 For days Violet was haunted by thoughts of 
 Martin Redwood. That episode in the Strand, and 
 then the episode at Stratford Fair, recurred to her 
 again and again, bringing vividly to mind other 
 episodes ; that discovery of Martin's watchfulness 
 over her in her solitary life at Vesprie Towers, and 
 that dream of the Vesprie luck on the night before 
 starting for London. Was Martin Redwood, by any 
 remote chance, still acting as her self-constituted 
 guardian during her far greater loneliness in the 
 midst of the crowded highways and byways of 
 this perilous life in this great city ? That must surely 
 be impossible ! And yet the coincidence of these 
 encounters with the man who had been Lawrie's 
 chosen friend in boyhood caused her to think more 
 about that companionship with her brother than 
 she had ever done. Incidents in Lawrie's life in 
 connection with Martin Redwood that had seem- 
 ingly been wiped out of her memory began to crowd 
 in upon her thoughts. 
 
 Violet's frank admission of indifference in the 
 past in regard to every detail related to her by 
 
198 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Lawrie about his friend Martin — an indifference 
 that had so often vexed her brother — had now 
 changed to a feehng of excessive interest. She 
 recalled to mind events in Martin's life from his 
 early childhood that Lawrie had told her which had 
 been until to-night completely erased from her 
 memory. She had only thought of him hitherto 
 as the son of the prize-fighter, the notorious 
 " Stratford Slasher." But Martin Redwood now 
 rose up in her recollection surrounded by a certain 
 newly-awakened halo of romance. She recalled to 
 mind how, according to Lawrie, he had been edu- 
 cated at the Free Grammar School at Stratford-on- 
 Avon — Shakespeare's school — and how her brother 
 had said, " Martin's been better taught, Violet, far 
 better taught, than you or I. He's a scholar. He 
 gives all his spare moments to a study of great 
 writers, and Shakespeare is his favourite poet, too, 
 as he is your own ! " And then she recalled to 
 mind how Lawrie had told her that Martin loved 
 above all things to dream away hour after hour in 
 the church at Stratford — Shakespeare's church — 
 and what a number of ballads he had written. And 
 now Violet began to see in this Martin Redwood 
 when a boy a resemblance to the " marvellous 
 boy," Chatterton, whom she had read about in 
 her father's library. But, above all, she now 
 remembered (however had she contrived to let so 
 intensely interesting a fact slip from her memory ?) 
 that Martin had often talked to Lawrie about Sir 
 Philip Sidney and the Chevalier Bayard. And 
 what an entrancing book that was that Martin had 
 given her brother when they were children, a book 
 
A TIMELY ENCOUNTER 199 
 
 she had loved to read even more than the plays of 
 Shakespeare ! It was a book with a compressed 
 account of the lives of those chivalrous characters 
 by various writers. And the portrait in that book 
 — the portrait of the Chevalier Bayard — what a 
 delight to her in childhood that had been ! 
 
 It all came back to her now, vivid in detail, 
 as a forgotten dream will sometimes recur when 
 suddenly roused, as these memories had been 
 roused, by this unexpected meeting with Martin 
 Redwood ! 
 
 And then, again, how could she fail to be impressed 
 even in spite of her confused state of mind, when 
 making her hasty retreat from the crowd, with the 
 angry look on the brave face of her defender, and 
 the dexterous way in which he had made a lunge 
 straight out from the shoulder and struck down her 
 assailant with a smgle blow ? Lawrie was right. 
 Martin Redwood was a man " fully versed in the 
 noble art of self-defence," and taught, as Lawrie 
 used to boast, " by his own far-famed parent, the 
 Stratford Slasher ! " Yes, Violet could still hear 
 Lawrie's voice, she could still see the excited glitter 
 in his eyes, while reading about prize-fights from 
 BelVs Life in London^ in which the Slasher was 
 frequently a conspicuous figure. 
 
 And then again — (how could she possibly forget ?) 
 — had not her brother, Martin Redwood's enthusi- 
 astic pupil, taught her, on his part, all that he had 
 learnt in boxing matches, until she had become 
 almost as formidable in a contest with her 
 brother, when she assumed the gloves, as Lawrie 
 himself ? 
 
200 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Dear Lawrie ! What a happy childhood they had 
 had in a thousand and one ways in their open-air 
 Hfe from year's end to year's end, rambling about 
 woods and meadows round Vesprie Towers. And 
 yet, and yet, she had always persistently refused, in 
 her pride, to meet Martin Redwood. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MOLLY 
 
 One night in Brick Alley Violet's sleep was dis- 
 turbed by intermittent sounds of coughing outside 
 her door. She conjectured that it came from one 
 of the homeless flower-girls who, when they had 
 not the means of paying for a night's lodging, 
 would creep in at one of the front doors of a tene- 
 ment, which it was apparently nobody's business 
 to fasten, and sleep in the narrow passage and on 
 the stairs. 
 
 It was no new experience for Violet to hear 
 voices on her landing at night, but the coughing 
 became so distressful that she got out of bed, lit her 
 candle, and opened the door. A girl somewhat older 
 than herself was lying on the top stair, with her head 
 resting on her arm. She got up wearily on seeing 
 Violet, and said in an apologetic tone, 
 
 " I ain't got a copper to pay for a doss down, and 
 so I just popped in at the fust door in the Alley to 
 sleep on the stairs — yer don't mind ? " 
 
 " You have a troublesome cough," said Violet. 
 
 " Yus ; a fair treat, ain't it ? " 
 
 " There's a dreadful draught here," said Violet. 
 " Come inside." 
 
 *' Don't you fuss yourself," said the girl. " I'm 
 used to going to bed like this when I've been out of 
 
202 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 luck in the daytime. But thank you all the same. 
 Good-night, miss ! " 
 
 " No, you must come inside," persisted Violet, 
 " you look so ill, and I should get no sleep thinking 
 of you lying out there." 
 
 The girl, with some show of reluctance, entered 
 the room and sat on the corner of Violet's bed. 
 
 When Violet had closed the door, she stood gazing 
 with concern at the girl, for she was aghast at the 
 spectacle of a face so wasted and worn by illness. 
 
 A puzzled look suddenly came into her face. 
 
 " Why, where have I seen you before ? " she said. 
 
 " Ah, / know," said the girl, returning her gaze. 
 " I remember you very well, miss. It was you who 
 were so kind to me in the Strand one evening, only 
 a few weeks ago." 
 
 " Was I ? " said Violet, again looking into her 
 face. 
 
 " Yes, you gave me some money, and what's more, 
 you took my part when I was persecuted by two bad 
 women. I ain't forgotten it. I never shall." 
 
 Ah ! thought Violet, the very night upon which 
 she was so grossly insulted, and Lawrie's friend, 
 Martin Redwood, came to her aid ! 
 
 " I am going to make you up a bed," said Violet. 
 " There is a very good mattress under this, and two 
 sheets and a blanket, and you can take one of my 
 pillows, I always lie with my head very low. It 
 was an idea of my mother's. I never use more than 
 one pillow." 
 
 Whereupon Violet, with a celerity which seemed 
 to surprise the girl, took the best clothes from the 
 bed, swung off the upper mattress, pulled out the 
 
MOLLY 203 
 
 lower one, laid it on the floor, and in a few minutes 
 there was a comfortable bed for the girl. 
 
 During the whole of the following day Violet's 
 thoughts, in the midst of her laborious work at the 
 book-binding faetory, were constantly running upon 
 the poor waif to whom she had given shelter and food. 
 The look of gratitude in the girl's eyes haunted her 
 like a vision at once painful and cheering. She felt 
 less lonely than she had done for many a day. 
 
 WTien she returned in the evening to her room, 
 Violet found the girl slightly better and stronger. 
 She had got up and was sitting in a chair, eating a 
 piece of cold fried haddock which a woman on the 
 same floor had brought in to her. She asked Violet 
 if she might stay there that night, and she had no 
 doubt that in the morning she would be quite well 
 enough to go away. 
 
 " What is your name ? " said Violet. 
 
 " Molly." 
 
 Between Violet and Molly there soon grew up a 
 strong and affectionate intimacy. But neither 
 knew the other's surname. They lived in exactly 
 the same condition as others in Brick Alley. 
 Violet soon realised that her new protegee wished 
 to keep her past and her name from her, and Molly 
 could not fail to perceive that Violet's sentiment 
 was the same in this regard. 
 
 The extra expense of supporting Molly, for whom 
 no work could be found, became so serious that 
 Violet was forced to raise money on a sacred 
 trinket that had belonged to her mother, and which, 
 through all her impecuniosity, she had never yet 
 
204 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 attempted to pawn. She said nothing of all this 
 money trouble to the poor girl. She bore this new 
 burden in silence ; a premonition was growing 
 strong within her that Molly would soon cease to be 
 a burden, and while she lived she would do the 
 little in her power to succour this helpless waif. 
 She had parted with everything except her scanty 
 wardrobe, and, needless to say, that precious heir- 
 loom the rainbow topaz. 
 
 Would she be forced to part with that ? 
 
 On one occasion, when Violet was out, Molly got 
 out of bed, for she was still too weak to sit up more 
 than an hour or so during the day, opened the door, 
 and called out " Jennie ! " 
 
 Her call was soon answered by a slatternly little 
 girl of about thirteen. To this girl Molly gave some 
 coppers, and told her to go and buy her a sheet of 
 note paper, an envelope, a stamp, a penny bottle of 
 ink, and a pen. The child soon returned with the 
 articles she was sent to procure, and was told to 
 come back in half an hour's time. Then Molly sat 
 down at the table and began to write : 
 
 " Dear, darling Mother, 
 
 " When I last wrote to you, I said that I would 
 never write until I was able to write as a lady, but 
 my proud heart blinded and deceived me. I have 
 passed through a great deal since I saw you. I have 
 done what you forbade me to do, and I feel I can 
 never hope for your forgiveness. But I was deter- 
 mined that I would not write to you until I could 
 give you better news. And at last I can do so. 
 
MOLLY 205 
 
 Just at the very moment when I was in my worst 
 need, and had not a bed to He on or a piece of bread 
 to eat, I was rescued from starvation by a young 
 girl, an angel, mother, who took me in and nursed 
 me through an illness, and has been ten times more 
 than a sister to me ever since. I am getting better 
 now, but I am still a bit weak. She is quite a lady, 
 mother, as I'm going to tell you, but very poor. 
 I have not told her my name, nor where I come from 
 on account of my disgrace. But I have found 
 out who she is, though she don't suspect it. She is 
 Violet Vesprie, the great lady who was turned out 
 of Vesprie Towers. 
 
 " I do not tell you where I am living, dear mother, 
 because I don't want you to come and see me, 
 because I want to get well and come and see you. 
 
 " Your loving 
 
 " Molly." 
 
 Day by day Molly grew worse, and one night 
 Violet said, " Molly, I am going to tell you some- 
 thing. I never told you before, because I never 
 intended that anyone should know me as being any 
 other than Violet." 
 
 Molly looked up with an expression of intense 
 interest on her face, and sat upright in bed. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I've always known — known 
 from the first — that you were a lady, a great lady. 
 Yes. I have always known that. There is nothing 
 about you like anybody else I've ever seen or 
 known." 
 
 '' Well, Molly," Violet went on, without heeding 
 this interruption, " during all my struggle and all 
 
206 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 my poverty I have always retained about me a 
 valuable jewel, an heirloom that has come to me 
 through ages of wealthy ancestors. And what 
 I'm going to do now is to take it to a pawnbroker's 
 and raise money on it." 
 
 If Violet had herself been dying of starvation, as 
 she had felt convinced from the first, she could not 
 have turned her topaz into money — no, not if she 
 had been dying for want of food would she have 
 parted with the " Vesprie Luck." But this was 
 a very different affair. It was Molly, not she, who 
 was dying for want of proper nourishment. 
 
 " No, no — don't do that ! " cried Molly, with 
 sudden alarm. " Don't think of pawning a val'able 
 jewel. I am going to get up, and see what the 
 parish officer will do for me. Surely he won't let 
 me starve. The very name of a val'able jewel 
 make3 me shudder ! " 
 
 " Molly," said Violet firmly, " I intend to do it. 
 When I say that, Molly, you know what I mean." 
 
 " Please don't ! You frighten me," cried the 
 girl, and she began to tremble violently. 
 
 " Why, you extraordinary girl ! " said Violet. 
 *' What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid o' jewels," she murmured. " A 
 poor woman I once knew found a val'able jewel ; 
 she was mighty poor, and she was tempted to try 
 and pawn it, and she was given over to the police 
 on suspicion and locked up, and it was the ruin of 
 her. Don't think of it, please don't, it'll bring 
 bad luck." 
 
 In order to appease the girl, Violet said, " Well, 
 well, let it be as you wish." 
 
MOLLY 207 
 
 After a while the girl fell into a restless doze. 
 
 Violet sat watching the face of the sleeping girl ; 
 and while she still sat beside her there came throufjh 
 the window on the sultry, choky air the sound of 
 some street music from a neighbouring thorough- 
 fare. It was a harp and violin, and the tune they 
 were playing was the one which Violet had always 
 loved best in the world, " Home, Sweet Home." 
 
 During all Violet's brave struggle with adversity 
 the occasions had been very rare indeed when she 
 gave way to tears. But she gave way now ; and 
 when the harp and violin were, after a little while, 
 accompanied by the voice of a street singer, her 
 bosom rose and fell with a suppressed sob. Fearing 
 lest the sound should disturb the light sleep of the 
 sufferer, she was on the point of rising to close the 
 window^ when she perceived that a change had come 
 over the features of her sleeping companion. The 
 worn look was gone, and her features were illumi- 
 nated by the light of a wonderful happiness and love, 
 and then there came from her lips a dream-like echo 
 of the words of the street singer, " Home, Home, 
 Sweet Home." 
 
 Presently her lips began to move, and Violet 
 heard the words, 
 
 " Yes, mother dear, if you are not too tired we 
 will go out for a walk. Let us go on the banks of 
 the back-water and hear the birds and see the moor- 
 hens, and very likely the swans will have swum 
 round into the back-water, as they often do." 
 
 " The music," said Violet to herself, " has 
 pierced through her sleep, and ' Home, Sweet 
 Home,' has brought this poor creature pictures of 
 
208 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 her own home, as it has brought pictures of mine. 
 She comes from some peaceful place. I wonder where 
 it is ? It is somewhere far away in the country, 
 where there is a river and a back-water, and where 
 there are swans and moorhens. I do wish she 
 would tell me about her birthplace and her old 
 home. But I must never ask her. It is connected 
 with something very, very sad." 
 
 The girl's lips again moved. 
 
 " She is now wandering by the water-side," said 
 Violet, " and she is talking to her mother about 
 it." 
 
 Violet, as she looked at her, was driven to the con- 
 clusion that the picture which during all the time of 
 her own stay in London was constantly before her 
 eyes had been seen by her friend through a sort of 
 psychic power that sympathy had roused. But, in 
 truth, it was not a consequence of any such power. 
 The undreamed link between these two girls, 
 mysterious though it may seem, was that they 
 were born in the same locality, born within a few 
 miles of each other. And is there not, perchance, 
 something in the very soil upon which we are born, 
 in the very atmosphere above it, that aids in 
 moulding our characters, if not our destinies ? 
 The cradle of our lives draws us to itself whereso- 
 ever we go. No wonder that nostalgia acts so 
 powerfully upon us ; no wonder that the yearning 
 to return to Vesprie Towers was never absent for a 
 day from poor Violet's mind ! 
 
 When Molly awoke, Violet said, 
 
 " Were you dreaming of your home just now ? " 
 
MOLLY 209 
 
 " No, not my own home, but near to it, quite 
 near. May I tell it to you ? " 
 
 " Do, dear. I should like to know about it." 
 
 " I feel that this room is a kind of make-believe, 
 and the beautiful scene of my dream just the real 
 thing. It was a dream about the river Vesprie, 
 and the lovely woods of Vesprie Park." 
 
 " You know Vesprie Park ? " cried Violet. 
 
 " Yes, I'm a Thornton girl, I am. My mother 
 was left, not a widow, worse than a widow, with two 
 children, and had to bring us up upon nothing, for 
 in Thornton, where we lived, you see, the shillings 
 are very scarce indeed. Still we managed somehow, 
 and we were happy together ; for my mother loved 
 us, and w^e loved her. She used to call me dear 
 little Molly. There was never a mother loved a 
 daughter as my mother loved me, never, never ! 
 And as I grew up I was considered pretty " 
 
 " And you are pretty now," said Violet, in a 
 caressing tone. 
 
 The girl gave a wan smile. Then she went on. 
 
 " And when my mother used to go out charing I 
 used to stay at home, doing everything in the house. 
 My mother wouldn't let me go from home ; she 
 wouldn't let me go into service, because she thought 
 me so pretty, and she was afraid. Things went on 
 like this for a time, and, poor as we were, my mother 
 used to love to come home after her day's work and 
 sit with me and my brother. I had only one 
 thought in those days — my mother. Although 
 mother loved my brother very dearly, it was a 
 different kind of love from that she felt for me — I 
 soon discovered that ! I once heard her whisper to 
 
210 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 a neighbour, " If the Lord should take the boy, I 
 should get over it, in time ; but if I should lose my 
 Molly, that would kill me ! I could not live without 
 Molly. She is so sweet, so loving, so — so beauti- 
 ful ! " 
 
 And the girl broke down and began to sob 
 bitterly. 
 
 " You are distressing yourself," said Violet. 
 " Don't tell me anything you would rather not tell 
 me. I am sure you are a true-hearted girl. Don't 
 tell me any more of your story, if it pains you so 
 much." 
 
 " I must tell you, you are so kind. I want to tell 
 you ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't tell me any more, I can't bear to 
 listen to it ! I have learnt so much in the last year 
 or two. Don't tell me any more ! " 
 
 " Ah ! I see you shudder at the thought that I 
 am going to tell you something dreadful." 
 
 The girl stopped, and a resolute, almost desperate 
 look came into her grief- stricken eyes as she raised 
 herself upon her pillow and looked into Violet's 
 face. 
 
 " I am going to tell you something that will make 
 you shrink from me." 
 
 " I shall not shrink from you," said Violet. 
 " Pray do not think that." 
 
 Molly hesitated, but presently, brushing away her 
 tears, she went on, " One terrible winter, when we 
 could get nothing to do and were on the brink of 
 starvation, my mother was taken ill, and we were 
 in a dreadful plight. A young gentleman in the 
 neighbourhood, who had often spoken to me and 
 
MOLLY 211 
 
 made up to me, heard of our plight, and came to 
 see us. He was very, very kind to us. He was an 
 officer in the army, he was, and what he did seemed 
 so genuine-Hke that I — I got to be very fond of him, 
 and I feel certain sure he was a bit fond of me. I 
 went to London, and went into service. But I lost 
 my situation through one thing and another. He 
 would have been willing to marry me — I never 
 doubted that — and he'd have done it, but for his 
 family. And he went to India, and I never saw 
 him — never heard from him — never no more. Well, 
 it ended in my doing what I always felt that I ought 
 to do — go out to Australia in search of my father, 
 who had deserted us. I'd no money to pay for the 
 journey, but I chanced to learn that a family was 
 going out to Melbourne, and I got the situation of 
 nursemaid after a lot of trouble, and went out with 
 them, but I determined not to tell my mother, 
 because I knew it would madden her, the thought 
 of going after my father, who had behaved so ill to 
 us. When I reached Australia I made enquiries, 
 and after a while I learnt that my father had made 
 a huge fortune at the gold diggings, and had left the 
 colony and had gone to New York. The people I 
 went out there with wouldn't believe about my 
 being my father's daughter, and would give me no 
 assistance. I came back to England — don't ask 
 me how I managed it — and when I landed in 
 London I was almost without a penny. I got from 
 bad to worse after that, I did, from bad to worse. 
 I felt I never could go home. I couldn't face poor 
 mother. But I wrote to her, I wrote and told her 
 that I had got work from a market gardener in 
 
 P 2 
 
212 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Covent Garden, in the early morning. And that 
 was the honest truth. But it ended in my selHng 
 flowers in the streets. And that's how I caught 
 my bad cold, and but for you, my best o' friends, 
 I should have been dead by now — yes, dead weeks 
 and weeks ago." 
 
 A few days later, Molly's illness took a still more 
 serious turn. 
 
 " Dear friend," said she, " I shall not be a burden 
 to you many hours longer now. But, before I die, 
 I'm going to tell you what I found out long ago. 
 You are Miss Vesprie, of Vesprie Towers, and if you 
 had known my name you would have turned your 
 back on me . . . No, no ! I don't mean that, 
 but I was afear'd you might, so I kept my secret 
 from you. I'm Molly Redwood, and Martin 
 Redwood, the young sailor what had the misfortune 
 to love you so madly, is my brother." 
 
 While speaking in a broken voice, scarcely above 
 a whisper, she took from under her pillow a some- 
 what faded photograph, in a brass locket. 
 
 " Promise, if you should ever see him, or if you 
 should ever see my mother, promise me to tell them, 
 with my love, that this portrait is the only thing I 
 had to leave them when I died. Will you. Miss 
 Vesprie ? " 
 
 " I promise you," said Violet, as she bent over her 
 and placed her hand upon her hair, and kissed her 
 on the forehead, as she had kissed the girl's brother 
 on the osier ait on that never-to-be-forgotten day. 
 
 And now there came back to Violet Vesprie's 
 recollection that scene at the fair, and the look of 
 
MOLLY 213 
 
 recognition that had passed between her and Martin 
 Redwood. Should she tell Molly of that distressful 
 scene ? No ! Should she tell her that Martin had 
 come to her aid on that very night upon which she 
 had saved her when persecuted by those two 
 women of ill-fame, at the corner of Burleigh 
 Street ? No ; it was too late to tell her now, for 
 Molly was dying. Those golden coins that the 
 poor girl's wretched father, in his drunken fit, had 
 recklessly flung in handfuls to the thoughtless 
 crowd might have saved his child. Her brother 
 might have saved her. Who knows but what he 
 was in search of Molly at the very hour when he 
 came to her aid ? Who knows ? But now it was 
 too late. Nothing, nobody on earth could save 
 her now. It was too late. 
 
 The various occupants of the tenement took it 
 for granted that the dead wanderer would be buried 
 by the parish. Not so Violet. It troubled her 
 deeply to think of the poor thing, so gentle, affec- 
 tionate, and grateful, being buried in a pauper's 
 grave. And she determined to bury her. In doing 
 this last act of friendship to her fellow lodger in the 
 garret in Brick Alley, Violet Vesprie parted with her 
 last shilling. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A GARRET IN SUNFLOWER COURT 
 
 And now came a time of misery in Violet Vesprie's 
 life so painful that I must be forgiven for leaving it 
 unrecorded. I would not even touch upon it here — 
 I could not — but from a knowledge within me of 
 brighter days that were in store for her. 
 
 Actual starvation was before her, for she could 
 get no emploj^ment ; and very likely she would have 
 starved had she not one night accidentally come 
 upon one of her fellow work-girls in the book- 
 folding business, who insisted upon taking her into 
 a cheap cook-shop and giving her some supper. 
 This girl told her that a few shillings a week could 
 be earned in a jam factory by pasting labels upon 
 the jars. Violet went to this place, and entered 
 upon a new kind of drudgery, but after a while 
 business became slack, and she was discharged. 
 
 That morning, with only a few pence in her pocket, 
 without the least prospect of finding work, she 
 wandered towards Piccadilly, listlessly gazing into 
 the shops, trying to distract her mind from 
 desperate thoughts. 
 
 After a while she found herself wedged in the 
 crowd. It was some time before she realised what 
 the equipages meant that were blocked in the 
 street before her ; but she found herself looking 
 
A GARRET IN SUNFLOWER COURT 215 
 
 into one of the carriages, in which sat a beautiful 
 young woman in white satin, with an immense 
 bouquet in her lap. She was dressed in a low 
 dress, smothered with lace ; here and there peeped 
 out a glittering gem. She was engaged in what 
 seemed very earnest conversation with a middle- 
 aged lady who sat with her, a lady exquisitely 
 dressed in rose-coloured silk covered with gems. 
 
 As Violet stood and gazed into the motionless 
 carriage, she recalled those tales of Drawing-room 
 glories which her mother had repeatedly told her 
 in the old days at Vesprie Towers, and she felt that 
 the beautiful young woman in the carriage might 
 be herself, and that the lady was her dear lost 
 mother ; and then a vivid, dramatic picture lived 
 before her eyes. She imagined herself and her 
 mother going through all the wonderful fairy 
 story of a Presentation at Court. She saw her- 
 self mingling in a splendid throng of English 
 aristocracy. Then, for the first time during these 
 sorrowful days, tears came to her relief and trickled 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 She turned away from the crowd and found her- 
 self presently in Hyde Park. She sank down 
 wearily upon a bench in a quiet spot under the 
 trees. The thought of expending a penny on a 
 chair never entered her head now. 
 
 To her surprise, a chair-keeper came up while she 
 was still seated there and said, 
 
 " Do you remember, miss, sitting on one of my 
 chairs some time ago ? " 
 
 " Of course I do ; I remember you well," said 
 Violet. " But why do you ask ? " 
 
216 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Well, miss, while you were sitting in a chair one 
 day, I see'd a lady in a wonderfully splashing turn- 
 out twist round and stare at you in a most extra- 
 ordinary way, and actually look back as the 
 carriage went on, in order to keep you in sight as 
 long as possible. She was a grey-haired, elderly 
 sort of lady, and sad-like, and she was driving a pair 
 of 'osses as spick as any pair I ever saw in the Row." 
 
 " Well," said Violet, " and what has that to do 
 with me ? " 
 
 " I'm agoing to tell you, miss," said the man. 
 " The carriage came back, and when it reached this 
 spot where you'd been sitting it pulled up, and the 
 lady stepped out and walked towards the vacant 
 chair where, as it chanced, I was standing. ' There 
 was a young girl sitting in one of these chairs a few 
 minutes ago,' sez she. ' Yes,' sez I, ' there wur, 
 and I've often thought o' letting her sit here for 
 nothing, but I was afear'd I might offend her, for 
 though poor, she looks too proud for that.' ' Ah ! ' 
 sez the lady, ' you never said a truer word. She's 
 the proudest young woman in London, and she's 
 reason to be ! ' 'So I'd say,' sez I. ' I've know'd 
 the young woman myself for a long while now. I 
 remember her first coming to sit on one of my chairs 
 three or four years ago, and she was better off then, 
 I'm thinking ; she used to amuse me, she did ! ' 
 ' How ? ' sez the lady. ' Why,' sez I, ' I never 
 know'd anyone take such a good pen'orth out of a 
 chair as she did. She stared at the carriages and 
 things just as a child stares at a peep-show ! She 
 did enjoy it, and no mistake ! ' ' Did you chance to 
 see which way she went just now ? ' sez the lady. 
 
A GARRET IN SUNFLOWER COURT 217 
 
 ' No,' sez I, ' I couldn't say. I went up to the other 
 end to colleet pennies, and when I come back she 
 was gone.' " 
 
 Violet's curiosity was roused. Could it be some 
 lady of title who had known her parents in the old 
 days ? And, strange to relate, this was the season 
 of the year when a yearning to see once again the 
 beloved trees and grass and flowers of Vesprie Park 
 came upon Violet with exceptional force. Had 
 that lady ever been to Vesprie Towers ? 
 
 In the garret that evening at sunset Violet sat 
 lost in dreams of the past and future, her face 
 resting between her two open hands. She had left 
 Brick Alley months ago, and was now living in a 
 place even less inviting, known as Sunflower Court. 
 
 " Mine is the plight," she was thinking, " in 
 which people commit suicide. I can imagine poor 
 Chatterton in his garret with a dose of arsenic 
 before him. To him death could come as the only 
 benefactor. He was not supported by the belief 
 in the Vesprie luck as / am. In his terrible fight 
 with life he, the son of a gravedigger, had not what 
 I have got to keep him up — the sense of family 
 traditions. If I were to yield to the temptation, 
 I should bring a slur upon the name of Vesprie ! I 
 could never do that. 
 
 " This is the hour when the Vespries die. My 
 dear father died at the set of sun, and they say his 
 father died at sunset before him. 
 
 " And yet never did I feel so strong a presentiment 
 that the Vesprie luck was approaching as I do now 
 when I am so faint and ill for the want of food." 
 
218 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 She gave another look at the red radiance 
 breaking through the miserable, patched panes 
 of the garret window. Then, either from want 
 of food or fatigue after her tiring walk, she fell 
 asleep, her head resting on the window sill, 
 and dreamed that she had returned to Vesprie 
 Towers. 
 
 It seemed to her that she was listening as of yore 
 to the cuckoo, and the tinkling of the sharpening 
 scythe and the call of the corncrake ; and the 
 perfume of the newly-cut grass seemed to be wafted 
 into the room. 
 
 Presently she awoke, the perfume still tantalizing 
 her senses. And now the longing to see Vesprie 
 Towers and Vesprie Park in its summer beauty 
 became irresistible. It had never come upon her 
 with such force before. At moments like these 
 it was her invariable habit to take out from the 
 pocket of her dress the rainbow topaz and gaze 
 into its iridescence, lost in dreamy thoughts of 
 her old home. She drew it forth now and looked 
 down into it intently. Of a sudden she gave a 
 start, and exclaimed, "Why did I never think 
 of that before ? Yes ! Surely he will help me. I 
 cannot take such a jewel as this to a pawnshop ! 
 Poor Molly was quite right. But he will have 
 compassion on me. He will not have the heart to 
 disregard my supplication." 
 
 Her mind was now fully made up to call on Mr. 
 Walton, the solicitor of that kind friend of hers, 
 the late Mr. Brandon, the mortgagee. 
 
 And so next morning, having consulted a direc- 
 
A GARRET IN SUNFLOWER COURT 219 
 
 tory, Violet turned her steps towards John Walton's 
 office. 
 
 The firm of Walton and Walton, of Leadenhall 
 Street, had been for many years, and still was, one 
 of the most prosperous and most fortunate firms 
 in the legal profession. 
 
 Their business, originally a large conveyancing 
 one in Lincoln's Inn, had been removed into the 
 city because city company after city company had, 
 mainly through the genius, financial as well as 
 legal, of Mr. Walton, been attracted to that 
 firm. 
 
 The sunshine of prosperity seemed to gleam 
 through the London smoke upon the very offices 
 in w^hich the business w^as carried on. The clerks 
 were the best paid among the law clerks in London, 
 and the most lightly worked. To get into the office 
 of Walton and Walton was the aspiration of nearly 
 every law clerk in London, for each poor struggling 
 clerk trying, and often trying in vain, to keep a roof 
 over his family and himself, knew that it was the 
 custom in this clerical paradise for every clerk to 
 retire, if he chose, on three-fourths of his salary, after 
 a certain age, or to continue until the infirmities of 
 age made it impossible for him to work. This 
 liberality had been a factor of some importance in 
 the ever-widening reputation of Walton and Walton. 
 For when the managing clerks of other firms had 
 occasion to utter the name of Walton and Walton 
 in the hearing of the clients a reverential hush came 
 upon their voices, and the clients remembered this. 
 It was an axiom of Mr. Walton's that liberality is 
 a good investment. 
 
220 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 It was to this most respectable firm that Violet 
 took her way on the morning following her sudden 
 resolution to visit Vesprie Towers. 
 
 She enquired for Mr. Walton. 
 
 " What name ? " said the clerk. 
 
 " Miss Vesprie." 
 
 The clerk gave her a startled look, which he 
 quickly suppressed, and asking her to take a seat, 
 went down a passage leading to the principal's 
 room. 
 
 After he returned he ushered her into the room 
 where sat Mr. Walton. 
 
 He rose from his chair as she entered and received 
 her with a politeness she had scarcely expected. 
 His whole manner put her at once at her ease. 
 
 " You remember me, Mr. Walton ? " 
 
 *' Perfectly, Miss Vesprie. I called upon you at 
 Vesprie Towers when forced, on behalf of my client, 
 to perform a painful duty." 
 
 " Yes. It is four years ago." 
 
 " Yes, Miss Vesprie, four years since we — we lost 
 sight of you." 
 
 " And now, Mr. Walton, I have come to ask your 
 aid in order to enable me to go and see my old home 
 
 once more." 
 
 While speaking she took the jewel and held it out 
 to Mr. Walton. 
 
 " What is this ? " 
 
 " The Vesprie Luck," said Violet. 
 
 " Ah ! I heard of this from the late Mr. Brandon. 
 An heirloom, I think, that has been in the Vesprie 
 family for centuries." 
 
 " Yes. I have come to ask you if — if you will 
 
A GARRET IN SUNFLOWER COURT 221 
 
 advance me a few pounds upon this jewel, enough 
 to pay for my journey to my old home." 
 
 Mr. Walton leant back in his chair, and after a 
 thoughtful pause, said in a kind voice, as he held 
 the jewel up to the light, 
 
 " I think I may be able to do something for you, 
 Miss Vesprie, without your parting with this heir- 
 loom. Wiat is the amount you require for your 
 journey to Vesprie Towers ? " 
 
 " Five or six pounds would be ample. But " 
 
 " Then, my dear Miss Vesprie, pray let me be 
 your creditor for six pounds." 
 
 He gave her back the jewel while speaking, and 
 then opening a drawer in his desk, took out six 
 sovereigns, which he handed to Violet. 
 
 " But," said she, hesitatingly, " when — when 
 shall I repay it ? " 
 
 " W^e will talk about that on another occasion," 
 said Mr. AValton significantly. " Good morning ! * 
 and he held out his hand. " When you get to 
 Vesprie Towers, ask at the lodge if there are any 
 letters for Miss Violet Vesprie. You will find one 
 from me waiting for you. Good morning." 
 
 And he escorted her to the door of his room with 
 as much ceremony as he would have bestowed 
 upon the most important among his aristocratic 
 clients. 
 
 Mr. Walton's courteous attitude towards Violet 
 Vesprie did not trouble her in the least degree, or 
 indeed cause her any surprise ; and as she hastened 
 on her way to Sunflower Court through the thorough- 
 fares, there sounded in her ears above the noisy 
 traffic the words that were seldom absent from her 
 
222 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 mind, " The Vesprie Luck — the Vesprie Luck ! " 
 and she pressed her hand caressingly over her 
 pocket where the rainbow topaz was resting, still 
 in her possession, as it had rested ever since she 
 quitted Vesprie Towers four years gone by. 
 
BOOK III 
 
 THE RETURN TO VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 JOSEPHINE 
 
 Towards evening on the day following her visit 
 to Mr. Walton, Violet Vesprie stood like a stranger 
 at the old lodge gate at the entrance to Vesprie 
 Park. 
 
 A young woman came hurrying out of the lodge 
 before Violet had time to ring the gate bell. 
 
 " I've called for a letter which I was told would 
 be waiting for me here. My name is Violet 
 Vesprie." 
 
 " Miss Vesprie ? Why, yes. The letter came by 
 post this morning. Pray come in, miss, and I'll 
 run and fetch it for you." 
 
 While speaking she s^vung open the gate and then 
 went into the lodge, quickly returning with the 
 expected letter. 
 
 Violet thanked her as she turned her steps 
 towards the Towers. 
 
 The moment she was alone she opened the 
 letter. It was brief, but there was a note inside 
 addressed to " Miss Thirl well, Vesprie Towers." 
 
 The letter ran, 
 
 " Dear Miss Vesprie, 
 
 " The enclosed is an introduction to Miss Thirl- 
 well, who has taken Vesprie Towers on a short 
 
226 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 lease. She is fully conversant with everything con- 
 nected with your affairs. I have left it to her to 
 break to you all the news that has been waiting for 
 you many a day now. She will perform the task a 
 thousand times better than I could have hoped to 
 do at my office when you called, even had I placed 
 an entire day at your disposal. 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " John Walton." 
 
 While reading this letter Violet was walking 
 slowly along under the old avenue of elms. Look- 
 ing up, she presently espied a lady coming towards 
 her with a quick and sprightly walk. 
 
 There are certain faces — they are few — which are 
 so individual in their formation and expression that 
 to guess the nationality of them is quite impossible. 
 The young lady, apparently about twenty-six 
 years of age, was one of these. Her face was 
 oval, the forehead was broad, and as beautiful as 
 Violet's own, and yet the modelling was so different 
 from Violet's forehead that no likeness could be 
 traced between them. Although the cheek-bones 
 were a little higher than is generally considered 
 beautiful, they did not seem to mar the beauty of 
 the face, but they seemed in some unaccountable 
 way to increase the beauty. The nose, though a 
 little too small, was regular, straight and perfect ; 
 the mouth was not quite so full and beautiful as 
 Violet's, for the lips were scarcely full enough, yet 
 they were lovely in their shape. The eyes, which 
 were far apart, were large, bright, and of a richness 
 which made them seem sometimes black and some- 
 
JOSEPHINE 227 
 
 times dark purple, and matched with the thick 
 mass of bhic-black hair — fine, straight and silky. 
 It was, however, the tone of the skin that was 
 perhaps the most striking feature of the face ; it 
 was as if upon the fair cheek of an English girl a soft 
 yellow light had been shed. Her figure, compared 
 with Violet's, seemed petite. But the contour of her 
 bust and arms, combined with her remarkably erect 
 figure, gave her quite a commanding appearance. 
 
 She approached Violet with a perfect ease and 
 freedom in her manner. But suddenly she stopped 
 and gazed into the girl's face. 
 
 " Miss Vesprie ? He has found you then, at 
 last ! " and holding out her hand she said, smilingly, 
 " I am Miss Thirlwell ; lam glad to welcome you 
 to Vesprie Towers. I have been looking forward 
 to this pleasure for — for ever so long ! " 
 
 But Violet, who was gazing down the avenue like 
 one in a dream, although she glanced for a moment 
 into the young lady's face as she spoke to her, 
 seemed scarcely to have caught her words. 
 
 Miss Thirlwell regarded her with some concern. 
 
 " You are tired after your long journey," said 
 she, in a tone of sympathy. 
 
 " Yes, I am tired," said Violet, wearily. " May I 
 rest here for an hour before I go back to London ? 
 I only came to see my dear old home once more. 
 How delightful it looks in all its lovely summer 
 beauty ! I should like to wander about the park 
 for an hour or two, if I may ; and then — and 
 then " 
 
 " Won't you come indoors and rest ? Your 
 room — your old room — is all ready for you. I'm 
 
228 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 not going to let you go back to London, you know. 
 I want you to stop, as my guest, I mean. I have 
 so many things to tell you, for, you see, you have 
 been away so long. And — and I have promised 
 Mr. Walton to tell you all about everything that 
 has happened since the very day you turned your 
 back on Vesprie Towers — four years ago, I'm told 
 — just four years ago." 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, still looking dreamily about 
 her, " four years ago ! " 
 
 As they passed in at the entrance to Vesprie 
 Towers and began to ascend the stairs, Violet, still 
 looking dreamily around, said, 
 
 " Nothing is changed. Everything looks exactly 
 as I left it ! I am so glad." 
 
 " Yes, nothing has been changed," said Miss 
 Thirl well. " I felt sure you would come back some 
 day, and I have kept everything as I found it. Some- 
 thing told me that I should be doing what would 
 please you, and it seems my instinct was right." 
 
 Miss Thirlwell left her guest at her bedroom door 
 with a sprightly " Au revoir ! " and descended the 
 stairs with a light step, singing as she went snatches 
 from a French song with all the vivacity of a born 
 Parisian. 
 
 When Violet entered her room she found every 
 article of furniture just as she had left it. She 
 threw open the window and looked out upon the 
 park. The day was drawing to a close, and she 
 sat down as she had done on the night before leav- 
 ing Vesprie Towers, and listened to the rooks as 
 they went by on their way to the rookery on another 
 side of the Towers. 
 
JOSEPHINE 229 
 
 " Yes ; it's all a dream. I've never been away 
 from my dear old home. I shall soon wake up and 
 find that the four years in London is only a dream 
 after all." 
 
 Presently a servant came in with a tray which 
 she arranged on a table near Violet's seat at the 
 window. 
 
 " Please, miss," said the girl, " I was asked to 
 say as Miss Thirlwell thought that being tired you 
 might like to be alone. So I've brought you some 
 tea and a few little things that she thought you 
 might like." 
 
 " Thank you. Yes, I should like to be alone this 
 evening. I am very tired." 
 
 The night closed in. Violet crept into bed. She 
 slept soundly. It was the healthful dreamless 
 slumber of a young girl breathing her native air; 
 and when morning dawned she was awakened by 
 the song of the Vesprie birds, as in the days gone by. 
 
 The impulse to hasten out into the park was 
 irresistible, and she was soon flitting about among 
 the matchless trees, enjoying the witchery of it all, 
 visiting the old haunts, as though no time beyond 
 a night had elapsed, as though the four years' 
 absence from her beloved home had for the moment 
 been completely wiped from her recollection. She 
 met no one, and this fact gave increased force to her 
 sense of solitude — that delightful sense that she was 
 alone at Vesprie Park as in the days of yore. 
 
 The spell was broken at last by the sight of Miss 
 Thirlwell saluting her from the steps of the terrace. 
 
 As Violet approached, her hostess went out to 
 welcome her, and there came into her eyes a look 
 
230 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 of admiration and friendliness that was unmistak- 
 able. Violet stepped towards her impulsively and 
 held out her hand to take her outstretched hand in 
 greeting. 
 
 " The sunrise was so lovely that Ariel ran away 
 with me," said Violet. "I get so excited in the 
 Vesprie sunshine, when I hear the Vesprie birds 
 beginning to sing, that I quite forget all about the 
 flight of time." 
 
 The two girls were drawn irresistibly towards 
 each other. Violet had begun to feel as deep an 
 interest in Miss Thirlwell as it was clear to her Miss 
 Thirlwell had begun to feel in her. 
 
 "Won't you come in to breakfast?" she said. 
 " I was coming out to look for you. And you must 
 be hungry after your long ramble through the park." 
 
 And she led the way across the terrace towards 
 the French windows. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Violet as they went in, " this is my 
 favourite room. It was my mother's boudoir, you 
 know." 
 
 "It's my favourite sitting-room," said Miss 
 Thirlwell, seating herself at the breakfast table. 
 " I've heard it was your mother's boudoir. My 
 studio — I'm an artist, you know — is in one of the 
 delightful rooms upstairs." 
 
 " You seem to know something about us — I 
 mean the Vesprie family." 
 
 " Yes, I have learnt everything about you from 
 Mr. Walton. I think I know more about your 
 family, Miss Vesprie, than most people." 
 
 Violet looked up into Miss Thirlwell's face while 
 stirring her coffee in a slow meditative way and said, 
 
JOSEPHINE 231 
 
 " Is it about my family that you have something 
 to tell me ? Mr. Walton led me to think that he 
 had left it to you to break some news to me that he 
 wished me to hear. Is it so ? " 
 
 " Yes ; something about your family. But that's 
 not all the news. I've a score of things to tell you. 
 The fact is, Miss Vesprie, I've so much to tell you — 
 so much to talk to you about — that I don't know 
 where to begin." 
 
 " Will it — will it take very long to tell me — 
 everything ? " 
 
 " Yes. It will take days — perhaps weeks." 
 
 " Weeks ? But, I'm going back to London to- 
 day. I only came to have one look round at the 
 dear old home, as I told you last night. I've taken 
 a return ticket to town. I'm serious, I really mean 
 
 it! I dare not stop — I " and she paused, 
 
 and moving towards the window looked out upon 
 the park, brilliant in its dazzling morning light. 
 " If I stayed here another day my resolution would 
 fail me ; I shouldn't ever find the courage to turn 
 my back again on Vesprie Towers. Oh 1 you don't 
 know — you don't know what this home is to 
 me!" 
 
 " I think I do," said Miss Thirlwell, in a low voice. 
 " No one knows it so well as I do. I want com- 
 panionship — a friend. Won't you be that friend ? 
 Come ! " she added, " let us go and sit down in the 
 park. Perhaps by the time we've found a nice 
 shady spot I shall have made up my mind where 
 to begin. I think I shall interest you, for all I have 
 to tell you concerns you very deeply indeed." 
 
 A\Tien they had wandered some distance among 
 
232 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 the trees, Miss Thirlwell said, as they sat down side 
 by side. 
 
 " I think I ought to begin by telhng you that 
 Mr. Walton has been searching for you everywhere 
 for more than a year past. It was known that you 
 were living somewhere in London with a destitute 
 girl, named Molly Redwood, but your place of abode 
 could not be traced, though no expense was spared 
 in making the search for you and the unfortunate 
 young woman." 
 
 " Poor Molly ! " said Violet in a sad and medita- 
 tive voice. 
 
 " I will not ask you to speak about your hard life 
 in London for the last four years," said Miss 
 Thirlwell. " The story of your sufferings is written 
 in your face. Some day, if it should afford you any 
 relief to acquaint me with your story, you will find 
 me ready and willing to listen ; for I sympathise 
 with you more than I can hope to prove to you — at 
 present. Some day — something tells me already — 
 we shall be such close friends that we shall scarcely 
 keep a thought from each other." 
 
 " Ah ! something tells me the same ! Will you 
 tell me your name — your christian name, I mean ? " 
 
 " Josephine. Your name is Violet. That I 
 know of course." 
 
 " Yes. You were talking about Molly," said she ; 
 " will you tell me all you know ? " 
 
 " I was about to do so," said Josephine, " for, as 
 I was saying, it concerns you more than you 
 suppose." 
 
 " Anything you can tell me about Molly will 
 interest me." 
 
JOSEPHINE 233 
 
 After a pause, Josephine began. 
 
 " You learnt from Molly that she was the daughter 
 of a poor woman whose husband had deserted her 
 and who lived in this very village — a woman named 
 Joan Redwood." 
 
 " Yes, she told me that ; but she was very 
 reticent about her life up to the last day. They 
 were poor people living in Thornton, and living in 
 great tribulation and distress." 
 
 " They were, indeed ! Molly and her mother got 
 a scant livelihood by field work. It was so scant, 
 as I was told, that Molly determined to get a situa- 
 tion in service ; but as she knew how remote were 
 her chances of doing so in Thornton she went on 
 hoping that she might find a place in London. 
 Now, like so many women whose lives have been 
 so entirely spent in the country, the mother had a 
 great dread of London and its dangers for young 
 girls in service. But there seemed no way out of 
 it. She had to submit, for Molly, hearing of a 
 situation in a wealthy family in the West- end of 
 London, went into service. And for a time, indeed, 
 all seemed well. But before many months had gone 
 by, Mrs. Redwood got the distressing news that 
 Molly had lost her situation, though apparently 
 not through any fault of her own. It chanced, 
 as luck would have it, that one of Molly's fellow 
 servants got hold of a copy of the Thornton Gazette 
 that contained an account of her father's disgrace." 
 
 " I heard about that," said Violet. " Yes, it 
 was the talk of Thornton for days. Her father, 
 Jerry Redwood, was a prize-fighter and a low 
 drunkard. He killed a man at a fair. He was 
 
234 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 convicted of manslaughter, and was sentenced to a 
 year's imprisonment." 
 
 " The housekeeper at the West-end mansion," 
 continued Miss Thirl well, "got hold of the newspaper 
 and she spoke to Molly about it. She said she was 
 very sorry, but that it was her duty to show it to 
 the mistress. The consequence was that Molly 
 was discharged with a month's wages in advance. 
 The girl, with all this trouble upon her, did not 
 lose heart. She wrote cheerily to her poor mother 
 that she would find work, and telling her not to 
 expect to hear from her again until she got settled 
 in a new situation. This letter depressed the 
 mother deeply, though she could not say why it 
 should do so. She had full confidence in the purity 
 and restraint of Molly's nature ; and yet she brooded 
 distressfully over the thought of Molly out of place 
 and alone in London. The mother knew when she 
 came to calculate what sum Molly had sent her out 
 of her wages that the month's money in advance 
 must be her girl's entire capital, and she knew that 
 nothing would induce her, in whatever strait she 
 might be, to appeal to her for help." 
 
 " What a pitiful situation I " Violet interposed, 
 half lost in the conflicting thoughts of all that 
 Josephine Thirl well was telling her and her own 
 experiences with Molly Redwood in their poverty- 
 stricken garret in Brick Alley. 
 
 " Days and days passed," continued Josephine, 
 *' but no letter came from Molly. One night the 
 woman sprang up out of her sleep and cried out, 
 ' Something dreadful is happening to her ! I must 
 go to London and find her out.' As a matter of 
 
JOSEPHINE 235 
 
 fact, as no doubt Molly told you, she had gone to 
 Melbourne in quest of her father." 
 
 " Yes," said Violet; " she went out, she told me, 
 as a servant with some family to Australia." 
 
 " She also told you, perhaps," said Josephine, 
 " that before she went into service in the midst of 
 their terrible poverty, the girl had frequently urged 
 upon her mother that some vigorous effort should 
 be made to get at the father, who had made money 
 in Australia, and compel him to support them ? " 
 
 " Poor Molly ! No, but she told me that she 
 reached Melbourne just too late. She learnt that 
 her father had gone to New York. But the fellow, 
 who seemed undoubtedly to be rolling in wealth, 
 came to England. I saw him." 
 
 " You saw that disreputable prize-fighter ? 
 \Mien, Miss Vesprie ? " 
 
 " Before I ever saw Molly," said Violet. " But 
 I never knew that they were related, until it was 
 too late ! Some day I will tell you where that 
 repulsive drunkard crossed my path. But not now I 
 Please go on. It's too painful to speak about at 
 the moment ! I hate even to think of it ! I only 
 wish I could dismiss it from my thoughts. But 
 I never can." 
 
 That scene at the fair on the occasion of her 
 excursion to Stratford- on- Avon with Mrs. Carlish 
 all came rushing back upon her mental vision. The 
 sight of Martin Redwood and his recognition of her ; 
 the look of anger and scorn that he had directed 
 towards his low-bred, dissipated father as he ca^.t 
 his gold among the crowd, again began to haunt her 
 in all its pitiful detail. 
 
236 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Josephine looked with a wonder-stricken glance 
 into Violet's face, completely dumbfounded at 
 her show of agitation. But presently she went 
 on. 
 
 " Not knowing that Molly had gone to Melbourne, 
 the poor woman went to London in search of her, but 
 where to look for her she had not the remotest idea. 
 She had sold a piece of furniture, and the proceeds 
 enabled her to spend a week in town. When she 
 reached the address from which Molly's last letter 
 had been written, after losing her situation through 
 her father's evil reputation, the spectacle of the 
 squalid court brought a sense of still keener dread 
 and dismay. The entrance to the court was open, 
 and on rapping at the door of a front room she 
 found that the occupant did not even know that 
 Molly had ever stayed in the building ; nor did 
 the occupants of any of the rooms on the first floor. 
 When she reached the second floor she found a door 
 half open, and looking in she caught sight of an old 
 crone sitting in front of a miserable fireplace, 
 rubbing her hands as though there were a fire 
 burning brightly in the hearth. This woman, after 
 a good deal of questioning, remembered Molly. 
 She told the distressed mother that the girl had 
 lived in a room on the same floor, but being unable 
 to pay her rent, had been obliged to leave the place. 
 The old woman, who was garrulous enough, told her 
 that she had urged her to go back to her friends in 
 the country, but her answer had been that they were 
 as poor as herself, and that she meant to find work, 
 somehow." 
 
 " That must have been about the time," said 
 
JOSEPHINE 237 
 
 Violet, " when I found her upon the staircase out- 
 side my room." 
 
 "Well," said Josephine, "after a wretched week 
 spent in further fruitless search, Mrs. Redwood 
 went back penniless to her own poverty-stricken 
 cottage at Thornton. It was soon after her return 
 that she got a letter from Molly with the news 
 that she had found a friend, and that that friend 
 was the lady of Vesprie Towers." 
 " She told her mother that ? " 
 " Yes; for she recognized you almost on the first 
 day that you took her in and shared with her the 
 scanty earnings you got at the factory where you 
 worked." 
 
 " Yes ; she told me at the last that she had 
 guessed who I was." 
 
 " But," said Josephine, " she never let her mother 
 know where you were living ; she never let her know 
 a word about the dire poverty and distress in which 
 she found you. All this came to Mrs. Redwood's 
 knowledcre afterwards, when Mollv was dead and 
 you had left Brick Alley." 
 
 " How did she get to know ? " 
 "Ah, that is what I am going to tell you. The 
 whole story of Mrs. Redwood's life after her return 
 to Thornton from her vain search for ^lolly was so 
 strange and unexpected that she could scarcely be- 
 lieve her own senses. News came to her that her 
 husband was in London, and that he had amassed 
 an enormous fortune in the gold diggings in 
 Australia, and that he was coming to Thornton to 
 see her. When she heard it, her one thought was, 
 not about his monev, but how to break the news 
 
238 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 to him that Molly — for whom in her childhood he 
 had professed the deepest affection — was lost." 
 
 " What happened ? How did she face him ? " 
 
 " She felt that she never could," said Josephine. 
 " She felt that he would cast all the blame upon 
 her, and probably strike her down. For she had 
 good reason to know the man. But fortunately 
 for her, Mrs. Redwood never had to go through the 
 ordeal of confronting her ill-conditioned, disreput- 
 able husband. He was seized with a fit during 
 a drunken bout, and died after a few hours' 
 illness." 
 
 " That is the fate that a friend of mine — the 
 good Mrs. Carlish — predicted he would meet with," 
 said Violet, " when she saw him, at the time I saw 
 him, the worse for drink." 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Redwood now found herself a woman 
 of fortune," said Josephine, " for Jerry Redwood, 
 the Bendigo millionaire, as he was called, left her 
 all his wealth." 
 
 " Stop ! Perhaps you can tell me," said Violet 
 hesitatingly, and with a sudden show of agitation. 
 " There was a son, Molly's brother, Martin. Did 
 none of the money go to him ? " 
 
 " No. Father and son were on bad terms," said 
 Josephine. " Martin Redwood — a man with the 
 finest nature I ever knew — deeply resented the 
 reckless life the mad fool was leading. The man 
 swore that he would cut Martin off with a shilling, 
 and he did. But we will talk about Martin 
 Redwood another time, shall we ? " 
 
 Receiving no answer, Josephine glanced towards 
 the girl. She was gazing into space like one lost 
 
JOSEPHINE 239 
 
 in thought, and scarcely seemed to have heard the 
 question. 
 
 " Mrs. Redwood's first thought now was to use 
 her wealth — her whole fortune if needful — in her 
 search for Molly. But before she left Thornton 
 she put a couple of women in the cottage — a girl 
 named Lizzie Curtis and her grandmother — in case 
 of her daughter's return during her absence to her 
 native village. They were a trusty couple who had 
 known Molly from childhood." 
 
 " Molly often spoke to me of a girl named Lizzie. 
 Is she still living in the cottage ? " 
 
 " No. She and her grandmother are occupying 
 the lodge. Lizzie Curtis opened the gate for you 
 when you came in last evening, I expect. A dark, 
 handsome woman of about twenty-five, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Is that Lizzie ? I will go and have a talk with 
 her before — before I go away. But I'm interrupt- 
 ing you," said Violet. " So Mrs. Redwood went to 
 London again to look for Molly, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes. She took a house in a quiet street near 
 the Regent's Park as a sort oi pied-a-terre to which 
 she could go at night, or, rather, in the early hours 
 of the morning, as was more frequently her habit. 
 One room in the Regent's Park house was furnished 
 expressly with a view of reminding Molly, should 
 she ever see it, of the room in the cottage at 
 Thornton, with which she had been most familiar 
 as a child. In it she had a bookcase, fitted like 
 Martin's bookcase, with a glass bowl of fish on the 
 top of it. For she was always thinking of Molly 
 and of the day when she would be found and 
 brought to this London home." 
 
240 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 And all this time, thought Violet, during all 
 those terrible days, Molly was hidden away with 
 her in Brick Alley, poverty-stricken, suffering in 
 body and mind, and drifting nearer and nearer to 
 death's door at every hour ! If they had only 
 known, perhaps even then her life might have been 
 saved ! 
 
 " But I should tell you," said Josephine, " that 
 it was our friend, Mr. Walton, who acted as Mrs. 
 Redwood's solicitor. He engaged several detec- 
 tives — the best that gold could procure ; nothing 
 was omitted that could be thought of or devised. 
 But no trace ever came to Joan Redwood of the 
 footsteps in London of her beloved Molly ; and 
 night after night as she lay in bed after her weari- 
 some peregrinations she would bury her face in her 
 pillow and sob out one word, " Molly — Molly ! " 
 Day by day she realized the fact that money 
 after all had not the power to give Molly back to 
 her. The wild expenditure of her wealth in the 
 quest for Molly did nothing for her ; and as to 
 her huge fortune, this lavish outlay made no 
 impression on it whatever. 
 
 " And so the weeks and months passed, and so 
 went on this poor mother's search for the child who 
 was her very life. Still, with the passage of time 
 she did not relinquish her quest. Something told 
 her that Molly was alive and in London, the moment 
 she got into the London streets, and this feeling 
 never left her. This mysterious ' something ' was 
 a sixth sense, the sense which perhaps mankind 
 universally had once and has now lost in civilized 
 life, the sense like that exercised by the Australian 
 
JOSEPHINE 241 
 
 bushman, who, while his white conquerors perish — 
 lost in the bush — finds his way easily to his home 
 and his friends, the sense like that of the homing 
 bee across the sunny meadows, the sense that 
 enables the young cuckoo which has never been 
 trained to his destiny by any fond parent, like the 
 swift and the swallow, to follow the summer to the 
 climes where its parents have revelled for ages upon 
 aires ! It was a blind movement of this sense, but 
 only a blind one. It told her that Molly was alive 
 and not far off, but its power Avas not strong enough 
 to lead her to her child. At last a letter came, 
 bearing the Thornton postmark. It was from 
 Lizzie Curtis. The letter was short, but it enclosed 
 one that made Joan Redwood's heart beat wildly, 
 for it was in Molly's handwriting ..." 
 
 " But, how was this ? " said Violet. " She never 
 found her. I should have been the first to know. 
 She never came to Brick Alley while Molly was 
 alive. I was there with her until — until the last." 
 
 " No. There you are right. She never found 
 Molly alive. The letter contained no address, but 
 the postmark led her to conclude that she was 
 living somewhere in the East of London. It was 
 a clue, and the search was pursued with greater 
 perseverance than ever. She again spoke of you 
 and how you had saved her from starvation, and 
 how you had nursed her through an illness, and had 
 promised to find her work as soon as she was well 
 enough to get about. Do I weary you ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! What happened when Mrs. 
 Redwood got that letter from Molly ? I am deeply 
 interested." 
 
242 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 "It ought to interest you," said Josephine, with 
 an expressive smile, " for it is all about you 
 now." 
 
 " About me ? " 
 
 "All I have been telling you," said Josephine, 
 " and all that I'm going to tell you about Molly's 
 mother was told to me by Mr. Walton. I never 
 saw Joan Redwood. I wish I had, for many reasons, 
 as you will learn some day." 
 
 " Some day ? " 
 
 " Yes, when we come to know each other — when 
 we come to be friends. And," said Josephine, "I 
 don't think that time is very far distant." 
 
 " It seems to me already," said Violet, " that I 
 have known you for ever so long." 
 
 Josephine placed her hand caressingly upon 
 Violet's and said, " They found the room in Brick 
 Alley, the room," said Josephine, " in which you 
 gave Molly shelter and tended her to the last. But 
 they found it when it was too late. It would seem 
 that when Molly died, from all that Mr. Walton 
 discovered, you left the neighbourhood, and no one 
 could tell him where you had gone." 
 
 " Yes, I left the neighbourhood." 
 
 " Molly's mother went to Brick Alley and took 
 your room and furnished it, and although she did 
 not live there, she spent more time there than any 
 where else. She was never tired of questioning the 
 people who occupied the court about Molly and 
 you. No details concerning your lives in those 
 wretched surroundings were too insignificant for 
 her eager ears. By-the-bye," Josephine suddenly 
 added, " Mrs. Redwood did get a glimpse of you — 
 
JOSEPHINE 248 
 
 at least she fancied she did, when out in her 
 carriage one day in Hyde Park." 
 
 " Ah ! " And all that the park-keeper had told 
 her about the lady driving a magnificent pair of 
 horses who had made anxious enquiries about her 
 recurred to Violet's mind, and she hastened to 
 recount the incident. 
 
 " Well," said Josephine, " she was now almost as 
 anxious to discover your whereabouts as she had 
 been to find her child. Her sense of gratitude 
 towards you for your tenderness and devotion to 
 Molly during her last days was the most pathetic 
 sight ever witnessed. That is what Mr. Walton 
 told me. But he is coming down to Vesprie Towers 
 as soon as he can give us a day of his busy life, and 
 then he will tell you of the message Joan Redwood 
 sent you and many other things that I'm sure will 
 interest you very much." 
 
 " Mrs. Redwood isn't dead, is she ? " 
 
 " Yes. One day she sent for Mr. Walton. He 
 found her in that room of yours — ^that attic in Brick 
 Alley — that was to her the one sacred spot on this 
 earth, the room where you lived and where you 
 nursed her Molly, and where Molly died. The 
 truth is that the poor woman, broken in health and 
 spirits, had long determined to die in what she 
 called " Molly's room." And there she did die, and 
 the last words to Mr. Walton that the mother ever 
 uttered were words of inexpressible gratefulness to 
 you." 
 
 Violet sat for a long time lost in gloomy thought 
 over all that Josephine Thirlwell had been relating. 
 At last her new friend, concerned at her appearance 
 
 B 2 
 
244 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 of depression, rose from her seat beneath the tree, 
 and said in a cheery way, 
 
 " Shall we go in ? It's past luncheon time ; and 
 I'm afraid I've tired you with all I've been telling 
 you so soon after coming down to Vesprie Towers. 
 I ought to have waited a few days until you had got 
 more colour into your cheeks. It was my thought- 
 lessness." 
 
 And while talking she led the way towards the 
 house. 
 
 After luncheon, Violet fell asleep in her mother's 
 old arm-chair near the open window, for she had 
 by no means recovered from all the fatigue and 
 agitation occasioned by the sudden transposition 
 from her miserable state of life into this enchanting 
 atmosphere of her ancestral surroundings. She 
 was roused by the sound of Josephine's step on the 
 terrace outside. 
 
 " I'm glad you've had a rest," said she, looking 
 down smilingly into Violet's face. " Shall we have 
 some tea now ? " 
 
 When the tea tray had been removed, the two 
 girls seated themselves near the open window. 
 
 " May I ask you something ? " said Violet. 
 " I'm getting rather bewildered. I suppose it's 
 this sudden change. I can't account for it in any 
 other way. And when I look back upon all the 
 miserable scenes I have gone through, I feel more 
 bewildered still." 
 
 " Pray question me as much as you like," said 
 Josephine. " I can understand your bewilderment. 
 
JOSEPHINE 245 
 
 It's a marvel to me that you look so bright and well, 
 considering everything. I expected to meet some- 
 one broken in health and spirits. That you cer- 
 tainly are not, and I'm more pleased to see it than 
 I can express." 
 
 Violet looked earnestly into her friend's face. 
 *' No one in our family," said she, " was ever known 
 to lose heart. Don't you know why ? " 
 
 " No," said Josephine. 
 
 " It's our undying belief in the Vesprie luck." 
 
 " Ah ! I've heard about that," said Josephine. 
 " I've heard about the luck of Vesprie Towers. You 
 belong to a wonderful family, Miss Vesprie. I've 
 never heard of any family like it, and I've been a 
 globe-trotter ever since I was a child, and in my 
 journeys I've met all sorts and conditions of men. 
 Your family history, as told to me by Mr. Walton 
 and — and others, beats everything." 
 
 " The question I want to ask you is about Vesprie 
 Towers," said Violet. " In his letter to me, Mr. 
 Walton says that you've taken Vesprie Park on a 
 short lease." 
 
 " Yes, I've taken the place on a short 
 lease." 
 
 " From Mr. Walton ? " 
 
 '' Yes, Miss Vesprie, from Mr. Walton." 
 
 After a short pause, Violet said, 
 
 " He's not the owner of Vesprie Towers. You 
 don't mean that, of course." 
 
 " No, he's not the owner. He was appointed the 
 late Mr. Brandon's executor and trustee ; and as 
 I've been given to understand, he is still trustee of 
 the Vesprie property." 
 
246 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 After a long and more thoughtful pause, Violet 
 said, 
 
 " Did Mr. Walton ever tell you that there is a 
 tradition in the Vesprie family that Vesprie Towers 
 cannot be sold ? My father told me so, and no one 
 among our ancestors ever believed more firmly in 
 the tradition than he did. They may try to sell it 
 — they have often tried — but they cannot. It's 
 the luck of the Vespries ! There is some mysterious 
 power, my father would say, that prevents the 
 Vesprie lands from passing out of the Vesprie 
 family." 
 
 " Ah, I see ! " said Josephine. '* You want to 
 know if that so-called mysterious power still con- 
 trols the destiny of your family. Is it so ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Violet. " I'm burning to know." 
 
 "Well," said Josephine, " all I can tell you is that, 
 as trustee for the owners of Vesprie Towers and 
 the Vesprie lands — whoever they may be — Mr. 
 Walton is the person most likely to be able to 
 satisfy your very natural curiosity. Perhaps he 
 may make it possible for me to enlighten you. We 
 shall soon know. Come, you've not been to my 
 studio yet. Will you honour me with a visit ? " 
 
 And with a playful wave of her hand, she pre- 
 ceded Violet up the old stairs, singing blithely as she 
 went. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A SENSITIVE CREOLE 
 
 Days went by ; still Violet lingered on at Vesprie 
 Towers. In Josephine she had found a companion 
 after her own heart, and she shrank more and more 
 every day from the thought of again leaving the 
 beloved home of her forefathers, where she had 
 previously lived alone in her romantic " Island of 
 Poverty," as she had called it. For her days of 
 adversity in London became the dream now — 
 Vesprie Towers the reality. She began to roam 
 about the house and grounds with scarcely less 
 freedom of action than she had experienced in the 
 summer days of yore. For no visitors came to 
 Vesprie Towers. It was the life that was her choice — 
 a life as solitary as she desired. Often resting in a 
 hammock which she had had fixed in a shady spot 
 in the park, she would read a romantic story or a 
 poetic play, or dream her day-dreams with closed 
 book, without the slightest risk of interruption. 
 She was no more depressed in her present irrespon- 
 sible existence than she had been during the days 
 when she lived entirely alone. 
 
 The beauty and the wonderfulness of life — the 
 delicious thing it is to live — frequently came upon 
 her, and little, suppressed inarticulate sounds would 
 
248 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 come from her lips, as though her body must give 
 vent to the dehght she felt. 
 
 Her companion, Josephine Thirlwell, as she soon 
 discovered, was an artist of remarkable talent ; and 
 if she was not sketching in the park, she was busy 
 at her easel in the studio upstairs that had once 
 been Lawrie's room. It seemed tacitly under- 
 stood between the two friends that they should lead 
 their own lives without ceremony or thought of 
 restraint. 
 
 During one of their first evenings together in 
 " mother's boudoir," as they called it, where the 
 two girls had soon become deeply confiding, 
 Josephine related to Violet how she was sent when 
 quite young to one of the most delightful schools in 
 New York. 
 
 " And," said Josephine, " extremely happy I was 
 there, for I soon found that my schoolmistress had 
 taken to me in a most extraordinary way ! " 
 
 " Not more than / did," said Violet, laying her 
 hand upon Josephine's, " for I perceived at our 
 first interview that there was a wonderful magic 
 about you. There is a book, I remember, in my 
 father's library about a conversation with Goethe, 
 giving some remarks about what was called the 
 ' daemonic element ' in certain individuals. By 
 daemonic was meant, as I found, a mysterious 
 power which some people possess of attracting 
 others towards them — a power which, according to 
 what I could gather, was somewhat related to 
 animal magnetism, for it seemed to belong not 
 necessarily to intellectual superiority, not to 
 
A SENSITIVE CREOLE 249 
 
 amiability, nor to any kind of goodness, though 
 you, my Josephine, have all these qualities. I can 
 easily imagine how your schoolmistress was drawn 
 towards you, and you need not tell me how your 
 school -fellows were also drawn." 
 
 " They were indeed," said Josephine, " but that 
 was because in girls' schools in America there 
 is always a sort of elective queen whose function 
 is to be worshipped by all the pupils. When this 
 queen leaves the school, she is at once replaced by 
 another queen, for an American school is the very 
 ideal of a monarchy ; it can no more exist without 
 a queen than a bee-hive can exist without a queen 
 bee." 
 
 " How delightful ! " 
 
 " Well, from being the pet of the schoolmistress 
 I soon developed into being the queen-bee of the 
 school. The obedience that they gave to the 
 schoolmistress and the governesses was always 
 more or less partial. The scholars seemed to be 
 continually actuated by a feeling that they were 
 living in a republic where there was no monarch. 
 But not so with regard to me. The caliph did not 
 exercise a more arbitrary sway over Bagdad than 
 I did over that school ! It was not merely that 
 everyone of my school-fellows was willing to obey 
 my commands. They actually yearned to be com- 
 manded — asked to be commanded — as a spaniel 
 yearns with his wistful eyes set upon his master. 
 Their protestations of affection were unbounded. 
 W^henever any one of the girls received from home 
 a box of the creature comforts and luxuries which 
 schoolgirls look forward to with such eagerness, the 
 
250 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 contents of the box were at once laid before me to 
 choose whatsoever I Hked." 
 
 " What a wonderful school experience," said 
 Violet, " and what a wonderful school ! Do tell me 
 more about it ! " 
 
 " If I were to tell you a tithe of the instances of 
 this insensate devotion to me I should never know 
 where to stop," said Josephine. 
 
 " Do give me one instance — only one ! You 
 can't think how interested I am." 
 
 " Well, I will give you one. Although the living 
 at the school was extremely good, there were certain 
 table luxuries with which the cook did not provide 
 us. For instance, we got neither omelettes nor 
 new-laid eggs for breakfast, as you may imagine. 
 Now American girls have an extraordinary pen- 
 chant for omelettes, and in default of omelettes, 
 for new-laid eggs. And the most coveted of all 
 presents from home was a hamper of these delica- 
 cies. And it was not against the rules of the school 
 that the recipients of these luxuries should have 
 them cooked for breakfast. But as there are 
 different degrees of newness in regard to new-laid 
 eggs, each girl in sending her egg down to the 
 kitchen wrote her name upon it ; and of course, 
 should she feel a special kindness towards a friend, 
 she would write that name upon an egg ; and 
 nothing was prettier at breakfast than to see the look 
 of pleasant surprise on a girl's face on finding a new- 
 laid egg on the side of her plate, with her name 
 written upon it. She would look up and down the 
 table until her eye caught the eye of the donor, who 
 would kiss the tips of her fingers and throw the kiss 
 
A SENSITIVE CREOLE 251 
 
 across the table, and get another kiss by way of 
 response." 
 
 '' Ah ! I Hke that. What a misfortune it was 
 that I never went to school ! " said Violet. 
 
 " Well," continued Josephine, "" it was no un- 
 common experience of mine to see five or six or even 
 seven eggs ranged around my plate, with my name 
 upon each ; and I was perfectly conscious that each 
 donor felt amply rewarded by the kiss I flung to 
 her ! " 
 
 " But," Violet naturally interposed, " but you 
 couldn't eat cdl these eggs. What did you do with 
 them ? " 
 
 " I used to take from my pocket a little stubby 
 piece of drawing-pencil, which I carried with me, 
 and write upon each egg the name of some one of 
 the school girls who chanced to be without eggs 
 and pass them down the long table ; and it would 
 not uncommonly occur that one of these recipients 
 of my bounty to whom I sent an egg, because she 
 had not one before her, was a girl who had written 
 my name upon her very last egg, and was without 
 one herself ! " 
 
 Violet soon came to know that Josephine's 
 unusual beauty was of the Creole type, for although 
 her friend never directly admitted that there was 
 an admixture of African blood in her veins, in her 
 talks with Violet her intense sensitivity in this 
 respect made the fact only too manifest. 
 
 It was apparent in the defiant expression that 
 Violet noticed at times upon the strongly emotional 
 face. This puzzled her at first, but she came to 
 
252 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 understand the look when she reaUsed the resent- 
 ment Josephine expressed in regard to racial 
 animosity if at any time she spoke of her visits to 
 various countries throughout Europe and Asia, and 
 America most of all. 
 
 It was in a reference to Dumas that she first 
 betrayed her ill-feeling for her own people. 
 
 " You seem very fond of Dumas," Josephine had 
 said, as she lifted from the table one of the yellow 
 volumes — the first volume of ' Monte Cristo ' — that 
 Violet had been reading. 
 
 " Yes," said Violet, " perhaps I ought not to con- 
 fess it, but he is my favourite novelist. I have read 
 * Monte Cristo' more than once." 
 
 " And why ought you not to confess it ? " 
 
 " Because, judging from the little I have read 
 about novelists, he is considered to be quite a 
 second-rate writer. What do you think of him ? " 
 
 "Oh!" said Josephine, "I am perhaps scarcely 
 a fair judge." 
 
 " I don't quite follow you," said Violet. 
 
 " I don't think you do," said Josephine with a 
 quaint smile, " so let me tell you that I think Dumas 
 the greatest writer of the century." 
 
 " Well, really," said Violet, " you quite startle 
 me. You can hardly expect me to go quite so far 
 as that." 
 
 " No, not quite so far," said Josephine, " but you 
 will admit, I think, that Dumas is a great fountain of 
 imagination and invention, from whom story-tellers 
 of pure Caucasian blood draw inspiration without 
 acknowledging it. The rarest of all human facul- 
 ties is invention. And he seems to be the only 
 
A SENSITIVE CREOLE 253 
 
 modern writer who can invent a story. Tell me 
 if the story of 'The Gold Bug' would have been 
 thought of had not Edgar Poe drunk deeply of this 
 very volume — ' Monte Cristo ' ? Most of the historical 
 romances of England or America published since 
 Dumas wrote have been influenced by his novels." 
 
 Violet looked significantly into Josephine's face. 
 " What did you mean just now when you spoke of 
 ' pure Caucasian blood ? ' " said she. 
 
 " Do you not know," said Josephine, " that 
 Dumas was a quadroon ? Do you not know that 
 his grandmother was a pure negress ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Violet, " so she was ! I had for- 
 gotten that." 
 
 A bright light lit up Josephine's eyes as she took 
 Violet's hand between her two palms and pressed it. 
 
 *' You had quite forgotten that Dumas was a man 
 of colour ! That is because you are an English girl, 
 that is because you are not an American girl, that is 
 because you do not belong to the great new race of 
 the land of promise, that is because you do not 
 belong to the great republic which is in the van of 
 civilization." 
 
 " Why, Josephine, what am I to understand by 
 that ? " said Violet laughingly. 
 
 Josephine's face suddenly darkened. 
 
 " Americans love Dumas as much as you English 
 do. Why then," said she, " did he never set his 
 foot on American soil ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ! " 
 
 " I will tell you. In America the suspicion of 
 colour is far more terrible than the suspicion of 
 crime. Not even the almighty dollar can wipe 
 
254 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 away the suspicion of colour in the blood. Every- 
 thing else can be condoned. It is a fact — yes, a 
 shameful fact, my dear girl — that during the time 
 when Alexandre Dumas was the idol of American 
 readers he could scarcely have made his appearance 
 on American soil without being insulted, whereas 
 in England the fact of his having African blood 
 in his veins was rather a point of interest than 
 anything else ! And that is one among many 
 reasons," she added, again pressing Violet's hand, 
 " that makes me like you so much." 
 
 "Is it ? Your penchant for English people 
 generally is very marked." 
 
 " Well, in a certain sense, I have a penchant 
 for English people ; but that is only, I think, on 
 account of my dislike of my own people. Indeed, 
 my antipathy towards the Americans is a sin — I 
 confess it — a sin that I have to fight against every 
 hour of my life." 
 
 " Well, Josephine, I must admit I have rather 
 thought so. I will not ask you the reason, though 
 I think I can guess. I like them, such as I have 
 seen, and certainly you ought to try your best to like 
 them, for you are not a bit like an English girl." 
 
 " There you are right; I ought to like my own 
 people," said Josephine. '* I ought to dislike English 
 people, and — well, I don't ! There is an absence of 
 spontaneity about the English which one sees in 
 almost every other race. I became instantly friendly 
 with the Russians I have met. I became instantly 
 friendly with French people, with a great number of 
 Irish people, and a great number of Italians. But 
 in English veins the circulation of the blood is too 
 
A SENSITIVE CREOLE 255 
 
 slow. It seems to spoil for want of sunlight on the 
 skin. I think it is all a matter of climate, and I 
 think that the difference between the English and 
 the Americans will be greater in two centuries than 
 it is now. And yet it is the English I like and the 
 Americans I dislike — and for a very good reason, 
 though you must not press me to tell you what 
 that reason is." 
 
 On another occasion Josephine spoke with 
 significant eloquence about the great races and the 
 great struggles between races from immemorial 
 time. " Whether these races and their struggles 
 shall be known to posterity," she said, " depends 
 upon the chapter of accident. Do you not suppose 
 that there have been thousands of races as great 
 as the Maccabees, and thousands of heroic leaders 
 as great as Judas Maccabeus. But none of them 
 was fortunate enough to have among them a scribe 
 to immortalise them like the scribes of the Old 
 Testament and the Apocrypha ! " 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 One afternoon Violet sat with Josephine in her 
 studio, watching her at her easel. 
 
 " Violet," said she, " do you know what first 
 attracted me towards you ? " 
 
 " No, what was it, dear ? " 
 
 " It was a pure sentiment, an artistic sentiment 
 1 suppose one might call it. I associated you — 
 so young and so beautiful — with that spirit of 
 antiquity with which Vesprie Towers and all its 
 surroundings seem so rife. And that is why I'm 
 never tired of hearing you talk about your ancestors. 
 Do tell me some more anecdotes of their delightful 
 eccentricities." 
 
 Violet laughed and said, " Shall I tell you some- 
 thing about two of my great-aunts that my father 
 often told me about, who once lived here ? " 
 
 " By all means ; the more about them the better." 
 
 " They were women friends of the agglutinative 
 kind, and you know what that means, ' kissing 
 darlings,' and all that. Two very good women 
 they were, beyond any doubt, but if you had had 
 the privilege of listening to their conversation about 
 the two baronies, as my father had, you would have 
 Jearnt what two precious and beloved bores two 
 
TJ&TE-A-T^TE 257 
 
 good women can be. I am afraid they must also 
 be called two snobs." 
 
 " Is snobbery really a point of distinction 
 between women ? " 
 
 " One subject of exhaustless interest to them was 
 the State balls they had attended. They seemed 
 to remember every person they met at every State 
 ball, and the dresses the ladies wore. The only 
 subject of dispute between them was as to which of 
 the two families was the most out-and-out Tory — 
 the one great-aunt was a Vesprie ; the other, my 
 mother's aunt, was a De Courcy. On this great 
 question they would sometimes get quite warm. 
 Old Mrs. Vesprie violently opposed the substitution 
 of slate for thatch on the estate, as being new- 
 fangled and plebeian ; but my mother's aunt 
 was more conservative still. She was the last 
 woman in England that made her coachman ride 
 postillion fashion." 
 
 " Why was that ? " 
 
 " She regarded a box-driver as an odious innova- 
 tion of the nouveaux riches, derogatory to the 
 dignity of so great a family." 
 
 " How very droll," said Josephine. " There is 
 nothing in the world so comic as British snobbery, 
 unless Yankee snobbery beats it. Snobbery has 
 been the great factor in human civilisation. The 
 first of the anthropoids that developed into man 
 did it through an awakening sense of ancestry. 
 That is to say, he was the first snob." 
 
 " They were both great genealogists," said 
 Violet. " All their genealogical studies were con- 
 fined to the family trees of which they were them- 
 
258 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 selves the sprouts. This kmd of genealogist is 
 mostly seen, I fancy, among ladies whose relations 
 to the tree are a good way off the stem — represented, 
 I mean, by somewhat distant twigs, and the students 
 are generally of the spinster persuasion. Their 
 souls are generally supported by the knowledge that 
 they are of the family of the patrician rose, and 
 must, therefore, smell nearly as sweet. But some- 
 how my two great-aunts were as fervid as any of 
 the twiggists, though neither of them had any need 
 to give so much attention to the family trees. My 
 father often saw them sitting in the same room 
 together, busy with a kind of play-work that was 
 very fashionable then — Berlin wool-work. Did you 
 ever see it ? " 
 
 "No. Do you mean sample- work ? " said 
 Josephine. 
 
 " Something like that," said Violet. " Each 
 stitched at a huge canvas on a frame before her, 
 copying from a design divided into little squares, 
 each square representing a stitch. And what do 
 you think the designs were ? " 
 
 " I cannot imagine." 
 
 " Each was an elaborate family tree, with globes 
 like oranges hanging from the boughs ; each globe 
 had the name of an ancestor worked upon it. One 
 was the Vesprie tree, the other the De Courcy tree. 
 Each devoted herself to the study of her own family 
 tree first, and, secondly, to the family tree of the 
 other. Every now and then each friend would go 
 across the room to look at the other's tree, and shed 
 over its branches the sunshine of her sympathetic 
 smiles, and then agglutinate. Each of the artistg 
 
TJ&TE-A-TJ&TE 259 
 
 had a little Chinese table beside her, and on it lay 
 the pedigree-book of her family." 
 
 Josephine looked with amusement into Violet's 
 face. 
 
 " In those good old days when your two delight- 
 ful rank - worshipping aunts were young, and 
 doubtless very handsome, to get into society was 
 no easy matter. I mean of course real society, 
 not the modern thing that is always spelt with a 
 higSr 
 
 " That's true. My two rank- worshipping aunts, 
 as you call them," said Violet laughing, " would 
 often talk about x\lmack's ; they told me some 
 remarkable anecdotes about the extraordinary 
 exclusiveness of the sets connected with that 
 famous place. Things have indeed changed ! " 
 
 " Changed ? Why, nothing is easier than to get 
 into society nowadays," said Josephine. " All 
 you have to do is to have more money than other 
 people, or to do some amusing thing better than 
 other people can do it. That is the passe-partout. 
 Besides," added Josephine, " it's far easier, you 
 know, for an American girl without antecedents to 
 get into society than for an English girl to do so. 
 An American is just an American, but an English 
 girl is primarily supposed to belong to some set. 
 It has greatly amused me to study the manners and 
 customs of this section of English life ; and when, 
 a year or two ago at the Academy, one of my 
 pictures chanced to be the rage, I determined just 
 out of pure fun to play the American ' Society 
 Woman,' and what's more, I managed to succeed." 
 " I've often wondered how it chanced that you, 
 
260 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 an American, were so well acquainted with English 
 society," said Violet. 
 
 " I began by renting a good-sized house in 
 Portman Square. I had, of course, an elderly 
 artistic chaperon who went everywhere with me." 
 
 " Do tell me all about it ! What a happy day 
 it was when I first came to know you ! " 
 
 " That Academy picture of mine," said Josephine, 
 " which I called ' The Sunrise at Stonehenge,' 
 became more and more famous, so I determined 
 not to sell it. I cancelled the price in the Academy 
 book. Then several of the picture dealers ap- 
 proached me and offered me fabulous sums ; 
 but as I knew they meant to exhibit it and then to 
 engrave it, and make a lot of money out of me, I 
 determined to do all that myself and afterwards 
 sell it. Wasn't that clever ! " 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! Who could have believed," said 
 Violet, " that you were such a magnificent woman 
 of business ? And did you succeed in your 
 project ? " 
 
 " Succeed ? " said Josephine. " I refuse to tell 
 anybody how much I made by exhibitions, and the 
 engravings, and the final sale of the picture, fearing 
 it would get talked about and reach the ears of the 
 income-tax sharks ! Well, the sale of my ' Sunrise 
 at Stonehenge,' let me tell you, brought more orders 
 than I could have executed in half a century." 
 
 " Did you execute any of the orders ? " 
 
 " Yes, a few, not many," said Josephine. 
 " Society took up so much of my time. For when 
 I had got my house in Portman Square snugly 
 completed, I began to ask myself what sort of an 
 
Ti:TE-A-T^TE 261 
 
 entertainment I should begin with. Should I give 
 a dinner or a ball, or a few select luncheons ? I 
 couldn't give a garden party because I had no 
 garden. I was not long in deciding. I had formed 
 the acquaintance of all the musical people and all 
 the theatrical people of any note in London. I 
 found that an easy thing to do ! I determined to 
 give an evening musical party. Musical people 
 have the character of being mercenary, and mer- 
 cenary they are. And why not ? But / was a 
 fellow-artist, and they liked me ; and I was easily 
 able to give the most attractive musical party that 
 had been given during the season. Only at 
 Buckingham Palace itself had there been a musical 
 party that could be compared to it ! " 
 
 " You must have become quite famous ; and 
 now," said Violet, " in this quiet retreat you are 
 already forgotten." 
 
 " Yes, that's the way with society, of course. 
 That season — my season — all the society journals 
 and most of the daily newspapers wrote about me, 
 for everybody was talking about me. In fact, my 
 coup d' eclat was crowned with success ! But this 
 soiree was only an introduction to my great stroke — 
 my second soiree. I had only to mention the fact 
 to a newspaper man that my second musical recep- 
 tion was coming off for all London to be put into a 
 fluster about it." 
 
 " Of course you must have been too much 
 occupied with society," said Violet, " to give serious 
 thought to art." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! I neglected my work terribly," 
 said Josephine, " and what is even worse, I became 
 
262 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 wildly reckless in my expenditure. It is a matter 
 of surprise to me that I did not get into the bank- 
 ruptcy court ! Shall I tell you what was the pro- 
 gramme of my day from the middle of June to the 
 end of the season ? " 
 
 " Pray do," said Violet. 
 
 " Well, the first thing in the morning was my 
 ride in the park. Then I used to go out to luncheon, 
 and then I used to fulfil some afternoon engagement 
 such as a croquet party in the garden of one of my 
 new acquaintances, or perhaps in one of the big 
 squares, or else take a drive in a friend's carriage 
 in Hyde Park." 
 
 " Ah, I wonder if I ever saw you there. It 
 was my favourite resort, as I've often told 
 you." 
 
 " By the time I got home to Portman Square," 
 Josephine went rambling on, " it was time to dress 
 for dinner. A dinner was my great field of display ; 
 my rivals then were not as a rule the unmarried 
 girls, but the frisky young matrons. My competi- 
 tion with them was a very easy affair. The reason 
 why they are so successful with men is that the 
 nincompoops of society can flirt with them, or 
 pretend to flirt with them, and run no risks of 
 entanglements. If it was not for this you don't 
 suppose they would stand any chance against the 
 pretty unmarried girls ? For the frisky matron as 
 a rule is stupid and uninteresting. It is this 
 stupidity that makes them frisky. An unmarried 
 girl, of course, may be stupid, but she may be very 
 bright. Now I, an American and an artist, have 
 nobody to trouble himself or herself as to the 
 
T^TE-A-T^TE 263 
 
 matter of intentions ; and, besides, I am not con- 
 sidered stupid. And as for the balls " 
 
 And then she went on to describe in graphic 
 detail the endless balls to which she had been 
 invited. And so the evenings would be spent, 
 passing more swiftly and more pleasantly for 
 Violet than any she had ever known. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Josephine's hero 
 
 Josephine appeared on the terrace one evening, 
 outside the open window that led into the 
 boudoir. Stepping into the room, she discovered 
 Violet bending in the golden lamp - light over 
 a book. So immersed was she in her read- 
 ing that Josephine had to put her hand upon 
 Violet's shoulder to make her aware of her 
 presence. 
 
 " I have seen you fascinated by poetry 
 Violet," said she, "but never so absorbed before. 
 What has so captured the bright eyes of my 
 student ? " and she reached over Violet's shoulder, 
 and took up the volume. "Ah!" she muttered, 
 " that poetic play, ' The Birth of an Outlaw.' " 
 
 " Yes, I came upon it this morning in looking 
 over your books in the studio. I wonder who 
 this ' Sherwood ' is who has written this drama ? 
 It is very strange. Do you know, Josephine," 
 said Violet, lowering her voice, "that by some 
 extraordinary coincidence there's a scene in the 
 play descriptive of Vesprie Towers and an incident 
 relating to a dream that I had while I was living 
 here alone ? " 
 
 " Indeed ? " 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 265 
 
 " But the story is, I can see, founded on a ver- 
 sion of one of the old Vesprie ballads, one of the 
 best." 
 
 " That's interesting. In order to find good 
 romantic ballads, I've been told," said Josephine, 
 " one must go northwards to the border and beyond 
 as a rule. Now and again, however, the student of 
 southern tradition does come across a fragment of a 
 ballad which, although it has the lilt of the ballad 
 movement that we associate with the north, has 
 nevertheless many qualities which give it a flavour 
 of the soil, and make it essentially unlike the 
 northern minstrelsy. No doubt this old version 
 of a Vesprie ballad, w^hich you've discovered in this 
 play, is based on one still older, but now lost." 
 
 " Of course it is," said Violet ; " there is no doubt 
 whatever about that. There is, I'm sure, quite a 
 mass of ballads about our family, if they could only 
 be found." 
 
 " What other ballads are there ? " 
 
 " Well, there is the one about the ' Robin Hood ' 
 story, which is told in the panel pictures that 
 you're never tired of studying, ' Robin Hood's 
 Rescue,' you know. But this story, which the 
 author has called ' The Birth of an Outlaw,' was 
 always my favourite ballad, for it's about the luck 
 of Vesprie Towers." 
 
 " Will you read it to me ? " said Josephine as 
 she took a seat at her friend's side. 
 
 " I'll read you the opening scene," said Violet. 
 " That's the one in which the dream is introduced 
 — my dream, I mean." 
 
 And she began to read ; — 
 
266 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 '' ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 ' The Birth of an Outlaw.' 
 
 ' Wildwood Luck shall never die 
 While the rainbow in the sky 
 Makes a rainbow in the water 
 For a sign to son or daughter.' 
 
 Ancient Local Saw. 
 
 Characters. 
 
 ^ Ralph — a man-at-arms — a friend of Amelotte 
 Wildwood's brother, unknown to Amelotte. Until he 
 overheard her speak heedlessly some scornful words of 
 his low birth, he was secretly in love with Amelotte. 
 
 Amelotte — a beautiful girl — the last representative 
 of the ancient Wildwood family, to whom, if to any 
 body, must come the Luck of Wildwood Towers. 
 
 Scene. 
 
 A panelled room in a wing of Wildwood Towers. 
 Amelotte, alone, sitting in an antique armchair, has 
 fallen asleep. Before her on the table is a topaz 
 sparkling in the lamplight. 
 
 Ralph (entering the room and starting hack in 
 surprise on seeing Amelotte). 
 
 The lovely face I loved thrown back in sleep — 
 The lamplight flushing all the silken skin, 
 The brow of pearl whose sunny tresses sweep 
 Adown the throat and neck and lifted chin — 
 The lips Love shaped for his own lips to press, 
 Then saw them grow to such cold haughtiness 
 That he himself, though longing to caress. 
 Has never dared to win. 
 ( While he stands gazing at her the proud expression on 
 her mouth relaxes, and then fades away, and she smiles.) 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 267 
 
 Ralph {drawing nearer). 
 
 ' The Luck of Wild wood Towers,' your Prince of Elves 
 Whose mirrored rainbow guards the Wildwood girls 
 (Though, from of old, they well could guard themselves) 
 Is surely hovering o'er these golden curls — 
 Is bringing you that wild old Wildwood dream. 
 Making you smile wdth lips and teeth that seem 
 To open like a rose whose petals gleam 
 Half hiding dewdrop pearls. 
 
 Amelotte {talking in her sleep). 
 
 'Tis the spirit brings that glow- 
 Smiling where the skies were dark, 
 Bends the many-coloured bow 
 
 O'er the oak, the wood, the park. 
 Wakes the skylark's merry strain 
 As he mounts through drops of rain — 
 Makes the river glitter once again 
 
 With the mirrored arc. 
 In the water, amber-tinted 
 
 By the stain of fallen leaves 
 Blown from sward the leaves have printed 
 
 With the hues the autumn weaves, 
 Gleams the mirror'd bow^ of love, 
 Painted from the one above, 
 Where the river, wrapt in dreams thereof. 
 Lingers and receives. 
 
 Ralph. 
 
 Where moonbeams glimmer through the panes of glass 
 And mingle with the lamplight's rosy bloom, 
 You dream of ' Wildwood ' Oak and leaves and grass 
 And mirrored rainbows ! — in this panelled room ! 
 Beneath that oak you stand in that same place 
 Where I have seen you oft when trying to trace 
 The Wildw^ood elf in gossamer-opal lace 
 Outspread on Autumn's loom. 
 
268 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Amelotte {her lips shaping themselves in her sleep to a 
 
 kiss). 
 
 Faintly, sweetly in the water, 
 Like a half-forgotten bliss, 
 Gleams for me, the ' Wildwood daughter,' 
 
 What I long'd for, pined for — this — 
 This sweet bow, the happy sign 
 Of the joy that will be mine ! 
 ' Wildwood Luck,' while fairy colours shine, 
 Claims me by the kiss. 
 
 Ralph. 
 
 Now, Sleeping Beauty, was it Fate or Chance — 
 
 My foemen both ! — that led my footsteps here. 
 
 Where, like that Princess, daughter of old Romance 
 
 Imprisoned in the Fairies' magic sphere, 
 
 You sit and dream and see the sought-for sight 
 
 Your fancy fashions for your heart's delight ? 
 
 What Powers have brought Love's pallid face to-night ? 
 
 Dead Love more pale than Fear ! 
 
 What Powers have brought you this unhonoured boy 
 
 Who loved you, spite of Fate and Wildwood creed — 
 
 Yea, spite of all, and asked no sweeter joy 
 
 For his own passionate heart's divinest meed 
 
 Than just to love you — just to stand apart 
 
 And love you, Lady, you whose heedless dart, 
 
 Careless of what it wounded, slew his heart — 
 
 Ah, left it dead indeed ! 
 
 While you were yearning for the spirit who brings 
 
 The mirrored bow — ' The Luck of Wildwood Towers,' 
 
 How should you dream of me who took the stings 
 
 Of playful scorn to spoil my lonely hours ? 
 
 All things must yield to fate — must yield at last. 
 
 Even Amelotte's lips must yield — though guarded fast 
 
 From low-born lips — held safe by guardian caste ! — 
 
 Fate brought me to these flowers. 
 
 {He lemis forward over the table and touches her lips 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 269 
 
 with his own. Then seeing that her eyes open, he springs 
 away and conceals himself behind the knighfs armour.) 
 
 Amelotte (awakening). 
 What is this mysterious thrill ? 
 Sleep seems wearing Love's warm wings : 
 Do I wake, or am I still 
 
 Mingled with ethereal things ? 
 Did I hear and did I see 
 One who sighed, who gazed at me, 
 While the moon's rare music seemed to be 
 
 Struck from fairy strings ? 
 All a dream ! Ah, well ! they say 
 We can make our dreams come true 
 If — before the arid day 
 
 Dries them up like morning dew — 
 We can seize them, own them ours ; 
 Then they grow to fairy bowers. 
 All a dream ! And yet through Wildwood Towers 
 Ev'n the air seems new. 
 Did I stand in Oaken Grove 
 
 Where the deer had come to browse ? 
 Did a rainbow shine above 
 
 Wildwood Oak and tinge the boughs ? 
 Did the ferns and leaves and stems 
 Down the deer park shine like gems — 
 Shine like autumn's glittering diadems 
 
 Woven for elfin brows ? 
 Spring seemed gone and summer faded, 
 
 Autumn wore so sunny a glow 
 That the birds seemed half persuaded 
 
 June was back, with flowers in blow. 
 Trees and hedges, bowers and bushes. 
 Woke with June's own jays and thrushes ! 
 Every warbler in the reeds and rushes 
 Hailed the glittering bow. 
 Till a voice said, ' In the river 
 See the mirrored bow grow dim : 
 
270 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 When the stream begins to quiver 
 
 It will fade or lose a limb.' 
 Ere the voice had left my side, 
 Love's reflected rainbow died, 
 And I woke, for some one near me sighed : 
 
 Let me think of him. 
 
 (Starting up.) 
 
 That fond face which seemed, even now, 
 
 Bending o'er me when I woke — 
 That soft light upon the brow — 
 
 Those wide eyes whose deep lights spoke 
 Words of love — 'twas love for me ! — 
 'Tis the face I yearned to see — 
 'Tis the Luck of Wildwood Towers, and he 
 
 Waits beneath the Oak. ..." 
 
 She paused and looked with dreamy, wondering 
 eyes into Josephine's face. 
 
 " Who can he be ? " said she. " Who can this 
 ' Sherwood ' be ? " 
 
 '* My hero." 
 
 " Your hero ? ** said Violet with a quick glance 
 of inquiry. 
 
 '* Yes. The man — the sailor we've often talked 
 about — who saved my life." 
 
 " Ah ! Do tell me the story again of that brave 
 young fellow — why do you smile ? " 
 
 '* If I have told you that story once, Violet, I have 
 told it to you a dozen times. And now you want 
 to hear it all over again ! " 
 
 Josephine, however, needed no further persuasion, 
 but at once launched into a long and eloquent 
 description of a journey from Mexico to Marseilles, 
 telling of how she fell overboard during the voyage 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 271 
 
 and how a man on board — a sailor — sprang into a 
 rough sea and saved her from drowning. 
 
 " Josephine," Violet confessed, when she had 
 finished her recital, '' I am in love with a dream ! 
 I am in love with that heroic rescuer of yours." 
 
 " Yes," said Josephine, " I have already per- 
 ceived it. You need not confess that." 
 
 " In telling me your story, Josephine," said 
 Violet, '* you have told me more than you intended 
 to tell." 
 
 " And what is that ? " 
 
 " You have told me how deeply you love this 
 heroic seaman. And no wonder — no wonder ! And 
 I frankly own that you are right about me. Yes, 
 I have fairly fallen in love with him myself. 
 From my childhood," said Violet, " I have been 
 in love with the heroic side of man as seen in the 
 Chevalier de Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney and the Cid. 
 My brother's book about them was our favourite 
 reading. When I was living here alone, in my 
 island of poverty, I dreamt that such men could 
 still be found — I mean, found in the class into which 
 I was born ! \Mien I was brought into contact 
 with the other classes, with the mean little shop- 
 keepers of Lambeth, and w4th the very proUtaire 
 of the slums — when I was shocked by the meanness 
 and the squalor of those forms of life — I used 
 to say to myself, ' If I could only be brought 
 into contact with England's patriciate — with those 
 who inherit the traditions of honour — with the 
 Sidneys and with men of that temper, I should be 
 content.' " 
 
 " Then you do not think," said Josephine, " that 
 
272 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 there are now any men of the Bayard and Sidney 
 type ? " 
 
 " How can there possibly be ? " said Violet. 
 " I am proud of the soldier who endangers his 
 life not in the quest of promotion, but simply from 
 a sense of duty ! But, when he comes back from 
 the wars, what does he do ? He is content, as you 
 well know — if he belongs to society — to take up 
 his old place. He is content to be ' hail-fellow-well- 
 met ' with the vulgar money-grubs whose fortunes 
 are made by these wars. The soldier is sans peur 
 — but not sans reproche. He has the courage of 
 Bayard, the courage of Sidney, the courage of the 
 Cid, but there his nobility of temper ends, the self- 
 reverence of the old regime is gone. He is ready to 
 attend a function given by the vulgarest speculator 
 on the Stock Exchange or the vulgarest gold digger 
 from Australia, as vulgar and as disreputable as 
 that drunken pugilist, poor Molly's father, Jerry 
 Redwood ! " 
 
 " You are very severe," said Josephine with 
 sudden emotion. " I — I had no idea you took 
 things quite so seriously as that ! And — and I am 
 sorry for it." 
 
 " Why sorry, Josephine ? " 
 
 " Because in the end, you know, you will have to 
 marry one of these modern heroes." 
 
 " I shall never marry," said Violet. 
 
 There was a short silence between them. Both 
 seemed deep in thought. 
 
 " Come upstairs to the studio," said Josephine 
 at last. "I want to show you a portrait that I 
 finished painting to-day." 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 273 
 
 And she took up the lamp and went out with the 
 Hght raised above her head to show the way. 
 
 " Now, my dear," said Josephine with a bright- 
 ness in her manner that seemed somewhat assumed, 
 " I want you to take your place in the antique arm- 
 chair and listen to me ! And first of all let me 
 confess that I chose this ' panelled room,' as the 
 poet calls it, as my studio when I came here through 
 discovering that it w^as the room described in the 
 scene you have just been reading from ' The Birth 
 of an Outlaw.' " 
 
 "It is the room — all complete 1 The author 
 must have been here." 
 
 " Of course ! All complete. Yes, including 
 even the armoured knight ! " said Josephine. 
 
 She walked towards her easel over which a cloth 
 had been thrown and placed her hand upon it, as 
 though about to remove the covering. Suddenly 
 she paused and looked at Violet. 
 
 "The man who wrote that poetic play — the 
 man about whom we have so often talked, and 
 whom I call my hero — chose ' Sherwood,' as you 
 have surmised, merely as his nom de plume. I 
 will perhaps tell you his real name presently." 
 
 " An ideal poet, indeed ! " said Violet. " But 
 where is he now ? Not dead, I hope ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that's the distressing sequel to the story 
 about my hero that I never told you. A seaman of 
 great experience, his chief ambition was to become 
 an explorer, and he started from London, where I 
 last saw him, to join an exploring party at Sydney. 
 How strong and how full of enthusiasm he looked ! 
 — the strongest and handsomest man in the party, 
 
 V.T. T 
 
274 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 I was told. Some six months after that meeting 
 between us in London, a paragraph, taken from an 
 AiistraHan journal, appeared in the London news- 
 papers. I well remember the words of that brief 
 paragraph." 
 
 " What were they ? " 
 
 " ' We regret to read in an Australian paper that 
 the exploring expedition under Speckgrifts, to 
 survey the sources of the Fly River, is lost. It is 
 said that every member of the expedition has been 
 massacred by the natives.' " 
 
 " How very sad ! " 
 
 " Yes, my dear, the saddest experience in my 
 life," said Josephine with evident emotion. " I 
 think, had he lived, he would have made a great 
 name, not merely as an explorer, but as a poet. 
 His play, ' The Birth of an Outlaw,' was published 
 two years ago by a bookseller in Melbourne, and 
 attracted some attention. And now," she added, 
 lifting the cloth from the easel, and holding up the 
 lamp, " come and look at the portrait of our hero, 
 upon which I have been at work ever since I 
 came to Vesprie Towers, ever since I set up my 
 studio in this old panelled room ! " 
 
 Violet rose from the antique armchair and 
 stepped eagerly forward. 
 
 It was the portrait of a weather-beaten sea- 
 man in sailor's dress. No sooner had Violet's 
 eyes rested upon it than she uttered a low, dis- 
 tressful cry. - 
 
 " Oh, Josephine ! " she said, scarcely above a 
 whisper, her hand suddenly pressed on her friend's 
 arm. " It's Molly's brother ! " 
 
JOSEPHINE'S HERO 275 
 
 Josephine put down her lamp and then turning 
 to Violet she said — 
 
 " You've not forgotten his faee ? " 
 
 " No, I've not forgotten. He's the man I once 
 told you about, Josephine, when we were talking 
 one day about my solitary life at Vesprie Towers 
 in the old times." 
 
 " Is it possible ? Is this the hero who, unknown 
 and unseen, watched over you for months when you 
 lived here alone ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " The mysterious guardian who lit your fire, and 
 did all those other menial services for you, — who 
 watched over the lonely girl and ministered to her 
 wants?" 
 
 " Yes, Martin Redwood," said Violet. " But 
 why did you never tell me that that was the name 
 of your hero ? " 
 
 '' Ah ! Why indeed ? " said Josephine. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 
 
 After that night in the studio when Josephine 
 showed Violet her portrait of their " hero," Martin 
 Redwood's name was never mentioned. By tacit 
 consent the subject was avoided, though it was 
 evident that the incident had tended to draw the 
 two girls towards each other, if possible, more 
 closely still. 
 
 Otherwise their ideal life at Vesprie Towers went 
 on as hitherto with no apparent contemplation, on 
 Violet's part at least, that there was the remotest 
 possibility of its coming to a close. Whether it w^as 
 that she never ceased to entertain an unbounded 
 faith in the Vesprie luck, or whatever the cause 
 might be, she took no more thought of the morrow 
 during these enchanting days than she had done 
 when living at Vesprie Towers in her childhood. 
 
 One sultry summer evening Violet sauntered out 
 into the park towards a wooded spot where her 
 hammock was slung, under the wide- spreading 
 branches of a huge beech. She was so frequently 
 wont to rest here curled up on her at fresco couch 
 late into the night, that no one ever thought of dis- 
 turbing her, Josephine least of all — knowing her so 
 well as a " child of the open air," not even when, as 
 occasionally happened, she was overtaken by sleep, 
 
A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 277 
 
 and failed to make her appearance until long after 
 the usual breakfast hour. 
 
 On this particular evening she lay in her ham- 
 mock with a feeling of perfect lassitude creeping 
 over her senses. It was not a feeling of drowsi- 
 ness ; indeed, she had seldom felt more wakeful 
 than now. 
 
 It was a still, cloudless night, and she lay gazing 
 up between the branches into the starlit sky, in 
 that meditative mood which might have been called 
 bliss and might have been called pain, so full was it 
 of the two senses blended into one. 
 
 Save for the occasional barking of some dog in 
 the distant town of Thornton, or the song of a 
 nightingale, or the call of a drowsy partridge, the 
 entire park was filled with the most divine of all 
 music, the night's music of silence. 
 
 " How is it that Keats," thought Violet, " who 
 never spent a night under the stars, as I am spend- 
 ing it, was able to write words so entirely descriptive 
 of the music of silence ? 
 
 " * Heard melodies are sweet ; but those unheard 
 Are sweeter.' " 
 
 The footfall of the furred things among the 
 vegetation, the fluttering wings of the night insects 
 as they flew across her face, were the only sounds 
 that broke the unheard melodies that the bodily 
 ear can hear only when the night has awakened the 
 inner ear of the soul. 
 
 And then the breath of the flowers, the beloved 
 wild flowers, of Vesprie park, that seemed to know 
 her as intimately as they knew her in the days 
 
278 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 that now seemed years and years ago ! From old, 
 grateful experiences, when the scent was wafted 
 in at her bedroom window, she knew that exquisite 
 night perfume and all its delights. Sweet as is the 
 breath of all wild flowers during the day, she knew 
 from those reminiscences how enormously more 
 sweet was their fragrance in the night time. And 
 she knew why. The mystic science of childhood 
 had taught her that it was because the blossoms 
 were asleep and sunk in perfumed dreams such as 
 waking flowers do not know. 
 
 And now an owl settled silently upon a bush not 
 far from her. The bird apparently did not heed 
 Violet. And then, after a while, she heard a weird 
 sound which she knew well, a sound the owl makes 
 when hunger is beginning to tease her stomach, and 
 then she saw the ghostly owner of the yellow eyes 
 swoop down, silent as a snowflake, but swift as 
 lightning from the bush upon which it had been 
 waiting so patiently and seize upon its prey, a poor 
 little field mouse, and she could hardly suppress a 
 cry of pain at the sight. 
 
 It somehow reminded her forcibly of her own 
 terrible experiences in that struggle for life through 
 which she had passed ; it brought up a vivid mental 
 vision of the hard times with Molly Redwood and 
 the times that had proved, if that were possible, 
 harder still when those tragic moments of despair 
 had possessed her after Molly was gone, and she had 
 no one to think about, nothing but her own sad and 
 desolate plight. 
 
 Violet began to grow drowsy, at last, as the night 
 
A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 279 
 
 drew on apace, as more and more masterful grew 
 the glorious epic of stars above her, and sweeter 
 and sweeter grew the dreamy thoughts of her early 
 days, blotting out all the suffering that had inter- 
 vened until at last the memories of childhood and 
 the memories of these later days since her return 
 to Vesprie Towers, blended into one tide of 
 reminiscent blissfulness. Midnight struck from the 
 village church soothingly, and then she fell asleep, 
 if the condition into which her senses sank can be 
 called sleep, a condition in which the thoughts and 
 emotions of the waking state are mingled in the 
 recurrent waves of a shoreless ocean of dreams. At 
 first no distinct image of anything or any person 
 came to her, but the whole park seemed, so to speak, 
 charged with a feeling that some one was some- 
 where near her. And presently, a little distance 
 from her, where the glistening leaves of the trees 
 mingled with the light of the stars, she saw in 
 shadowy outline the face of the man she had seen 
 at Stratford Fair, the young sailor who had lifted 
 his hand to protect her on that memorable night 
 in the streets of London, saw every feature, saw 
 his lips move, and then she heard a voice that 
 seemed to come from afar and yet was mingled 
 with the voices of the nightingales from the park 
 trees, as the picture of the face was mingled with 
 the foliage and the stars. Then more musical 
 than even the nightingales' songs was that voice. 
 It was repeating in a low tone the same words 
 that she knew so well, words that she had heard 
 so often in her dreams and ever since she was a 
 child :— 
 
280 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Vesprie luck shall never die 
 While the rainbow in the sky 
 Makes a rainbow in the water 
 For a sign to son or daughter." 
 
 And now the vision in the dream that had come 
 to her in Lawrie's room upon that moonlight night, 
 the night before she left Vesprie Towers, rose up 
 before her, causing her an inexpressible sense of 
 happiness. 
 
 A strange and resistless magnetic force impelled 
 her to rise from her pillows ; slowly she slid down 
 out of her hammock and advanced through the 
 ferns towards the figure standing motionless before 
 her in the diminishing light of the stars, for now 
 in the lower sky faint indications were apparent of 
 the coming dawn. 
 
 If she had had a belief in the supernatural w^hen 
 living among the spirits of her ancestors in the 
 lonely nights at Vesprie Towers, the belief did not 
 rouse any sense of fear now. She stepped forward 
 unhesitatingly and looked more closely into the 
 sailor's face. 
 
 " If I am not dreaming," said she in a low, 
 measured and awe-stricken voice, "you are Martin 
 Redwood." 
 
 " Yes, I am Martin Redwood," was the response. 
 
 " I should have know^n you by your likeness to 
 Molly — your poor sister Molly — if I had never seen 
 you before. But I thought I must be dreaming 
 because," said Violet, ' because Miss Thirlwell and 
 everyone — as she told me — had been led to believe 
 that you were dead." 
 
 You are not dreaming, Miss Vesprie," said he. 
 
A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 281 
 
 " The rumour that I had met with my death was 
 spread far and wide. But, as you see, I escaped. 
 With the greatest difficulty, after endless hardships, 
 I reached Australia, and the moment I could get 
 employed as mate on board a homeward-bound 
 steamer I set sail for England." 
 
 Violet looked at him with a sudden growth of 
 interest. 
 
 " The news of your safe return," said she, " will 
 delight Miss Thirlwell beyond words. She has 
 spoken of you — told me all about your brave action 
 at sea when you saved her life — many a time. She 
 will appreciate more than I can express to you this 
 visit to her at Vesprie Towers." 
 
 " I was coming to see her," said Redwood, " last 
 evening. I wandered into the park just before 
 sunset. I am afraid I was tempted to linger 
 rather longer than I had any right to do on my way 
 towards the house. I sat down among the ferns. 
 And then, while seated there, the night being so 
 enchanting, I was tempted to linger on and on, and 
 at last I thought I would postpone my visit to the 
 Towers until the morning." 
 
 Violet regarded him with a look of genuine 
 surprise. 
 
 " Is it possible that you have been resting under 
 these trees all through the night ? " 
 
 " Yes, where I am standing now," said he, " all 
 through the night." 
 
 The thought flashed across Violet's mind, "Has 
 he been watching over me in my sleep, as he 
 watched over me in former days when I was living 
 here alone — alone in Vesprie Towers ? " 
 
282 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " But I came," Martin Redwood went on — " I 
 came here, Miss Vesprie, with the hope of seeing 
 you scarcely less than with the hope of seeing Miss 
 Thirlwell. For I heard from Mr. Walton, upon 
 whom I called on the very day I reached London, 
 that I should find you at your old home." 
 
 " You — came — to see — me ? " 
 
 " Yes. But pray let me explain," said he, 
 noticing a startled note in the tone of Violet's voice. 
 " When I heard from Mr. Walton all about your 
 kindness to my sister Molly, I felt that I must see 
 you, and thank you from my heart for what you 
 had done. Do not misunderstand me. If I had 
 not learnt that you were here — back once more at 
 Vesprie Towers — where it fills me with unspeakable 
 delight to find you, I should not have rested day or 
 night until I had got tidings of you and told you 
 of my heartfelt thankfulness. The thought of all 
 you had done for Molly brought a gleam of happi- 
 ness over my poor mother's last hour." 
 
 He held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " said he in a broken voice. " I won't 
 attempt to express my gratitude. It's beyond the 
 power of words. Good-bye ! " 
 
 Violet took the hand he held out to her, and to 
 his amazement pressed it to her lips. 
 
 *'Your gratitude to me!" said she. "Your 
 gratitude ! You owe me none. It is I who have 
 to thank you. Do you think I've forgotten the old 
 days when I was a little wayward girl and you were 
 Lawrie's chosen friend ? No day ever passed with- 
 out our talking together about you ! Do you 
 think I've forgotten that while leading my lonely 
 
A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 283 
 
 life in Vesprie Towers, it was you who, without 
 word or sign, watched over me, protecting me from 
 the perils of the night to which I might have been 
 exposed ? " 
 
 " I took your brother's place, Miss Vesprie, as 
 far as I could. There was no merit in that," 
 Redwood interjected. 
 
 *' And still more," Violet went on, not heeding 
 his words, " still more, do you think I've forgotten 
 that night on the streets of London when you came 
 to my aid ? I have never forgiven mj^self for 
 running away in that cowardly fashion, without a 
 word, without a single word expressing all I felt 
 towards you for what you had done. You must 
 have thought me utterly heartless. How can I 
 expect you to forgive me ? " 
 
 " Heartless, Miss Vesprie ? " cried Redwood. 
 " Such a thought never crossed my mind ! Why, 
 your goodness to Molly proves — if proof were needed 
 — that no one ever had a kinder heart than you 
 have." 
 
 " How can you think that ? Anyone, under the 
 circumstances, would have done what I did. But 
 you do not know," said Violet, " no one ever will 
 know, what I owe to Molly." 
 
 "What you owe to Molly ? " echoed Redwood in 
 an undertone. 
 
 " Yes, what I owe to your sister Molly," said 
 Violet. " Without her, without that loving, sweet- 
 natured girl who came into my life in those wretched 
 poverty-stricken days, I should have lost all 
 courage, my very existence would have been unen- 
 durable. I should have broken down and — and 
 
284 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 died. But in my love and thoughtfulness for 
 Molly — for I soon learnt to love her — life seemed 
 worth living, for I had something to live for, some- 
 one whose smile of welcome when I returned at 
 night to our poor garret home, came upon me like 
 a gleam of sunshine, and all the dark shadows 
 around us seemed to disappear. Do not speak to 
 me of gratitude. I deserve none for what I have 
 done. In my love for Molly — in her love for me — 
 I had my full reward." 
 
 For a moment Martin Redwood seemed too 
 deeply overpowered by Violet's words to speak to 
 her. At last he said, — 
 
 " Did she — did Molly ever mention my name ? " 
 
 Violet gave a sudden start and exclaimed, " Ah ! 
 how thoughtless of me I In her last moments she 
 sent a message to you.*' 
 
 " To me ! " said Martin ; " sent a message to me 
 through you I " 
 
 " Yes. When Molly was dying — not until then 
 — she told me who she was, and she asked me, 
 should I ever chance to meet you, to give you the 
 photograph of yourself that you gave her when you 
 last saw her, before going to sea. Poor Molly ! It 
 was the only thing she possessed." 
 
 With a suppressed eagerness in his look and in his 
 tone, Martin said, — 
 
 " Have you — by any chance — kept it ? " 
 
 " Kept it ! I would not have parted with it for 
 the world," said Violet. 
 
 " I hope, if you still wish to keep it, I mean for 
 Molly's sake " 
 
 " May I — may I keep it ? Oh, thank you, thank 
 
A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS 285 
 
 you ! It's my one souvenir of Molly. There's 
 nothing I value so much — nothing — unless it be my 
 rainbow topaz, the luck of Vesprie Towers." 
 
 And again, with a sudden impulse she held out 
 her hand—" Thank you ! " 
 
 He took the outstretched hand and bending over 
 it pressed it to his lips. 
 
 " Good-bye ! " said he, in a broken voice. " Good- 
 bye!" 
 
 And he turned away with a lingering step, out of 
 the shadows of the foliage overhead into the dawn- 
 ing light. 
 
 Violet stood for a while with her eyes bent upon 
 the retreating figure, and a strange emotion came 
 over her as Martin presently disappeared from 
 sight among the|itrees. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 JOAN redwood's bequest 
 
 The sun had not yet appeared above the horizon 
 when Violet reached the Towers. The household 
 showed no sign of being astir. On gaining her bed- 
 room a sense of weariness, so unusual with her in 
 the early morning, tempted her to sink down upon 
 her bed ; and in spite of the contending emotions 
 that were disturbing her mind, she soon fell into a 
 sound and dreamless sleep. 
 
 It was late when she awoke. Her first thought, 
 as she sprang from her bed, was to look for 
 Josephine. 
 
 The startling news that she had to communicate, 
 the news that Martin Redwood was alive, and that 
 she had spoken to him in Vesprie woods, must be 
 broken to her friend without a moment's delay. 
 
 Then came the thought. Would Josephine, when 
 told in detail the circumstances of the meeting with 
 Martin Redwood, believe that such an incident was 
 more than a vision that had come to her while 
 dreaming at midnight in her hammock under the 
 stars — a dream so vivid, as some of her waking 
 dreams had been, that it had seemed at the 
 time, and, indeed, still seemed to her to have 
 actually occurred ? 
 
 Violet, however, was by no means deterred by 
 
JOAN REDWOOD'S BEQUEST 287 
 
 any such thought, as she hastened downstairs to 
 Josephine's room. But Josephine was nowhere 
 to be found in the house ; and presently Violet 
 learnt from the servant, whom she met on her way 
 to the boudoir with her breakfast tray, that her 
 friend had gone out into the park more than an 
 hour ago. 
 
 Violet, whose healthy appetite lost nothing of its 
 keenness from a night under the stars, sat down 
 at the table and enjoyed her morning meal as 
 thoroughly as she had ever done in the days when 
 she cooked her own repast while living here alone. 
 She was healthy, physically no less than mentally. 
 The romance of life had for her its distressful side, 
 for Violet had suffered more than most women ; 
 and yet no one ever lived who had gained more 
 pleasure out of the joy that came from the mere 
 sense of existence. 
 
 She was too eager to find Josephine, however, to 
 linger long over her breakfast, and was soon hurry- 
 ing out through the woods, taking the path that 
 led to Josephine's favourite spot near the mere. 
 
 After searching for half an hour or more the 
 murmur of voices close at hand suddenly reached 
 her. 
 
 She stopped and stood quite motionless, a 
 listening look in her eyes, keen with excitement. 
 Then she moved with a soft tread towards the spot 
 from whence the sound of the voices seemed to 
 come. 
 
 *' You went direct to Mr, Walton's office when 
 you reached London ? ' ' 
 
288 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 It was Josephine who spoke ; Violet recognized 
 her voice at once. 
 
 " Yes, and his first remark when, as I've told 
 you, he had persuaded himself that he was looking 
 upon the real, live Martin Redwood was, ' I'm sorry 
 to inform you, my dear sir, that I've got very 
 bad news to break to you with regard to your 
 mother's estate. Fully believing that you were 
 dead, she left in her last will everything to a lady 
 for whom she had reason to feel the sincerest 
 gratitude.' " 
 
 " Yes, everything," said Josephine. 
 
 " Of course, Mr. Walton, in his dry, professional 
 way, went on to express his sympathy, declaring 
 that it was a very hard case, that he had never met 
 with a harder case in all his long professional experi- 
 ence. And when he gathered from my remarks 
 that I had no private means — nothing beyond the 
 money I might earn as a sailor, he began to hint 
 that the lady who had come into this rich estate was 
 a very generous lady, and would be the first to 
 recognise that she had inherited a property to 
 which / had — morally, not legally, of course — an 
 undoubted claim. And, he added, if I would per- 
 mit him to write to her he would make it his business 
 to put the circumstances of the case in detail before 
 her. He further added that although it was not 
 for a lawyer to commit himself in any way to an 
 opinion, he had reason to believe that the lady — the 
 sole legatee — would act towards him with a liber- 
 ality that would possibly surprise him. I was 
 naturally curious to know the lady's name, and I 
 hastened to put the question." 
 
JOAN REDWOOD'S BEQUEST 289 
 
 " Dear friend ! " Violet heard Josephine murmur, 
 " Is it possible you didn't know — that you had not 
 even learnt the lady's name ? " 
 
 *' How could I ? " said Redwood, " how could I ? 
 And when he told me who it was, when he said 
 * the lady's name is Violet Vesprie,' I thought I must 
 be going crazed— that I must still be suffering from 
 the'^sunstroke I got on Thursday Island a year ago." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " Josephine said, in a scarcely 
 audible voice. " I wish I had known you were in 
 London. I would have broken all this news to you, 
 and more gently, perhaps, than Mr. Walton would 
 seem to have done. But tell me. Did he make it 
 clear to you that Violet Vesprie had not only in- 
 herited all your mother's wealth, but that she was 
 the owner— the indisputable owner— of Vesprie 
 
 Towers ? " 
 
 Violet gave an involuntan^ start, and grasped the- 
 branch of a tree convulsively. An hysterical cry- 
 rose to her lips. 
 
 The owner of Vesprie Towers i 
 
 It was true then — all true ! That mysterious 
 power of which her father had so often spoken 
 existed after all ! It was no mere fairy tale. It 
 w^as the luck of the Vespries. That heirloom — the 
 rainbow^ topaz, which she had never parted with 
 throughout all those days of indigence and desola- 
 tion — had prevented Vesprie Towers and the 
 Vesprie lands from passing out of the family ! 
 
 Violet stepped hastily, but without a sound, 
 closer to the spot where Martin Redwood and 
 Josephine were conversing. If the thought crossed 
 her mind that she was an eavesdropper — that she 
 
 V,T. U 
 
290 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 had no right to listen to another word of all this 
 confidential talk between those two friends — the 
 impulse to approach nearer to them was one she 
 felt that she had not the strength to resist. 
 
 She peered eagerly between the branches, with 
 their thick screen of foliage, her lips parted — peered 
 with a fully roused interest in the scene that was 
 going on in the shady glade within a few feet from 
 the place of her concealment. 
 
 There, upon a moss-covered bank, was Josephine, 
 reclining beside Martin Redwood, who sat gazing 
 straight before him like one staring vacantly into 
 space, his handsome features expressive of the 
 distress with which he was relating the painful 
 details of the interview that had taken place so 
 recently between the lawyer, John Walton, and 
 himself. 
 
 " My one desire now," he was saying, " was that 
 Miss Vesprie should not know but that I had shared 
 the fate of my venturesome comrades. I asked 
 Mr. Walton to keep the fact of my escape from 
 captivity secret as far as possible. I told him that 
 I intended to resume my sailor's life and pass the 
 rest of my days in search of wild adventure, and 
 strive, as I had striven before, to forget the past. 
 But when — when I came to learn from him all that 
 Miss Vesprie had done for my sister Molly, I felt an 
 irresistible desire to see her and express to her my 
 boundless gratitude. I have seen her, seen her once 
 more, as I've told you. She is still ignorant of the 
 fact that she is the owner of Vesprie Towers. When 
 Mr. Walton makes all the truth known to her, I 
 shall be thousands of miles away." 
 
JOAN REDWOOD'S BEQUEST 291 
 
 For a while there was silence between them. 
 
 " I suppose," said Josephine, " Mr. Walton felt 
 it to be his duty to tell you that before your mother 
 realised all that Violet Vesprie had done for Molly, 
 she resolved to instate you here, at Vesprie Towers." 
 
 " Yes, the rumour of my being killed had not 
 reached her then ; she was expecting every day to 
 hear from me. She thought of instating me here — 
 as the master of Vesprie Tow^ers — to satisfy her 
 craving to be revenged on Miss Vesprie. She had 
 for years nourished a deep prejudice, as I've often 
 told you, against the Vesprie family. She w^as 
 stung almost to madness by their proud attitude 
 towards people of her own class of life. It w^as the 
 most insensate scheme of revenge ever conceived. 
 Miss Vesprie's very natural resentment at being 
 draw^n into the osier-peeler's game at that memor- 
 able fete increased her prejudice against the 
 Vespries." 
 
 " Yes, yes — class hatred," Josephine interposed, 
 in a low meditative tone. 
 
 " Her resentment," Martin went on, " developed 
 into a kind of mania. I'm sorrv to sav it of mv 
 poor mother, but she saw a chance of having her 
 revenge, as she called it, by purchasing the Towers. 
 She seized it. She took possession of this ancestral 
 house of the Vesprie family. But at the moment 
 of completing the purchase of the Towers through 
 Mr. Walton, she heard of Miss Vesprie's unexampled 
 kindness to Molly." 
 
 " Yes, my dear friend, and the discovery changed 
 her — changed her very nature ! " 
 
 " More than that, Miss Thirlwell — more than 
 
292 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 that ! She was stricken with remorse ; never, Mr. 
 Walton assured me, had he seen such grief as my 
 poor mother suffered when she found how deeply 
 she had wronged the best and truest friend that 
 Molly had ever known. It was pitiable — most 
 pitiable ! But she did all that could be done 
 to right her wrong. She made a fresh will, 
 settling everything, Vesprie Towers and half a 
 million of money, on the beautiful, sweet-natured 
 girl ; for her bitter hatred had been trans- 
 formed into a sense of love and gratitude never 
 surpassed." 
 
 " I believe it," said Josephine. " Do you know, 
 dear friend, that I almost think, if your mother had 
 only found Violet Vesprie before she died, her end 
 would have been comparatively happy, in spite of 
 all her distress at the loss of Molly and the dreadful 
 false news of your assassination." 
 
 " Yes, I've no doubt of it," said Martin, " no 
 doubt whatever. Mr. Walton, who acted, as I'm 
 forced to admit, more like a friend than a man of 
 business in his conduct towards my mother during 
 her last days, was quite of that opinion." 
 
 " Yes, he was indeed a friend ! I think there 
 never was a kinder hearted man." 
 
 Redwood's face suddenly darkened. " I can't, 
 I regret to say, agree with you," said he. " In one 
 matter — and no small matter, let me assure you — 
 he showed great want of heart." 
 
 " In reference to your mother ? Surely not ! ' 
 
 " No, in reference to Miss Vesprie." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " I will tell you ! One of the first questions I 
 
JOAN REDWOOD'S BEQUEST 293 
 
 put to Mr. Walton at our interview was as to what 
 took place between him and the lady of Vesprie 
 Towers when he called upon her and gave her 
 formal notice that she must quit the home of her 
 ancestors, and go out into the world without money 
 or friends. He related every detail of his talk 
 with her on that heartrending occasion, how he 
 told her of Mr. Brandon's death and the instruc- 
 tions he had received from the legatee to put up 
 the estate for sale. He told me, indeed, all that 
 passed between them, and seriously affirmed 
 that he was distressed at seeing Miss Vesprie's 
 grief." 
 
 " I don't doubt it," said Josephine. " It was 
 a situation that must have affected him very 
 deeply." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 " Yes. How can you question it ? " 
 
 Redwood's eyes flashed with anger. 
 
 " Now, Miss Thirlwell, let me ask you, what 
 man of real heart — with a spark of dramatic 
 imagination — would have let the lady of Vesprie 
 Towers leave the home that was part of her very 
 life without making it his business to enquire what 
 the young lady was going to do, where and how she 
 intended to live w^hen thrown upon the world, 
 destitute of means, and, w^hat was more serious still, 
 entirely unprotected ? " 
 
 " That's true — that's very true," said Josephine. 
 " I'm ashamed to admit that that never occurred 
 to me. That was a — yes, there's no denying it — 
 a serious oversight on John Walton's part." 
 
 " It was unpardonable. And what will you say, 
 
294 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 Miss Thirlwell, when I tell you that this man — this 
 John Walton — has a daughter of his own ? It's 
 beyond belief. Think of it ! By one kindly action 
 — perhaps merely by speaking one kindly word to 
 her about her future — he might have saved that 
 sweet girl from all those four years of misery 
 through which she passed ! By God ! I felt 
 inclined to spring from my chair and strike him 
 down. It was the conduct of a dastard. I can 
 never forgive him ! " 
 
 Martin Redwood sank down with his head 
 between his hands, seemingly overcome by the 
 thoughts to which he had given such impulsive 
 utterance. 
 
 Josephine bent over him and placed her hand 
 tenderly upon his shoulder. 
 
 " Dear friend, dear Chevalier Bayard ! I'm 
 ready to admit that Mr. Walton was to blame — 
 greatly to blame, if you will have it so. But we 
 must bear in mind that when he called upon the 
 lady of Vesprie Towers, he probably took for 
 granted — and not unnaturally — that she had friends, 
 if not relations, and indeed her brave show of in- 
 dependence must have almost confirmed him in 
 that belief." 
 
 But Redwood shook his head. " Don't defend 
 him. He doesn't deserve it. Did not his wealthy 
 client, Mr. Brandon, show the deepest interest in 
 Miss Vesprie ? It was an example he would have 
 done well to follow. Do you know, my dear Miss 
 Thirlwell, I begin to think — though there is no need 
 to think about it now — that a will may have existed 
 in which Mr. Brandon bequeathed the Towers and 
 
JOAN REDWOOD S BEQUEST 295 
 
 most, if not all, of his wealth to Violet Vesprie. 
 The will may have been destroyed, or it may never 
 have been attested. There is no need to enquire 
 into all that now. No object would be gained. 
 But I like to imagine that it might have been. I 
 like to imagine that Vesprie Towers could never 
 cease to be the home of the Vespries. I like to 
 think, as Violet Vesprie thinks, that for some 
 mysterious reason far beyond our comprehension 
 the Vesprie lands cannot be alienated from the 
 Vesprie family ! " 
 
 While Violet still stood listening to these words 
 of Martin Redwood's that expressed so aptly her 
 own thoughts, a bright acquiescent smile lit up her 
 eyes. As he ceased to speak she turned and 
 hastened to retrace her steps towards the Towers. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MEETING BY THE MERE 
 
 On reaching the house, Violet went and sat near 
 the open window in her mother's boudoir, recalhng 
 to mind, again and again, every word she had over- 
 heard between her friend and Martin Redwood. 
 
 She was still seated there, lost in thought, when 
 Josephine appeared on the terrace, and on seeing 
 her hastened towards her. 
 
 " I have seen him ! " 
 
 "Yes," replied Violet. "Your face would tell 
 me that, if I had need to be told. I too have seen 
 him." 
 
 "Is it not wonderful ? He is alive ! I can 
 hardly yet realise that it's true." 
 
 Violet rose from her chair and stood before 
 Josephine with downcast eyes. 
 
 " I've something to confess," said she. " I hope 
 you will forgive me. This morning I went out into 
 the woods to search for you, for I wished to be the 
 first to break the news. I found you at last. You 
 were seated beside him down by the mere, and " 
 
 " And you overheard the talk between us ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will tell you every word that came to me 
 while I stood with only a leafy branch between us. 
 It was disgraceful, I cannot expect your forgive- 
 ness." 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 297 
 
 " Dear girl ! What could you do that I would 
 not forgive ? " said Josephine. " But tell me all 
 you heard. Nothing, I'm sure, that I should not 
 have told you before this day of all days had come 
 to an end." 
 
 Violet hastened to repeat in detail all that she 
 had overheard, her voice frequently broken with 
 the emotion her recital naturally awakened. When 
 she had finished, she sat in silence, her look bent 
 thoughtfully upon her friend, whose look was no less 
 thoughtful. 
 
 "Josephine," said she, at last, "How you love 
 him ! " 
 
 " Yes, I love him. I love Martin Redwood," 
 said she, in a low voice, " as I am vain enough to 
 believe, with a deeper and less selfish love than any 
 woman ever loved. But he does not love me. He 
 gave his love to another years before we ever met. 
 He gave his great and enduring love to you." 
 
 " Josephine ! I grieve for you. You know I 
 do. But I cannot listen." 
 
 " You must listen ! This may be our last day 
 together. I am going away ; but before I go I 
 must and w411 plead for him. My sole thought is 
 for his happiness, not for my own. If I can bring 
 that about I — I shall live content." 
 
 " Ah, Josephine ! your love for Martin Redwood 
 is deep indeed." 
 
 " It's my love for him that impels me to speak. 
 Dear Violet ! it's in your power to confer upon 
 him all the happiness he craves for. I believe that 
 in your heart — yes, dear, I firmly believe it — you 
 love him ! Don't let this worldly barrier, this 
 
298 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 inborn pride of class, keep you and Martin any 
 longer apart. He is the very hero you dreamed of 
 — here in your lonely days — your hero incarnate. 
 Only think for a moment ! Is he not a true poet ? 
 And have we not both had every proof that he is 
 brave, chivalrous, courteous as Bayard himself ? 
 And now because you cannot add to all these 
 virtues that of high birth, you are going to let the 
 man you love — your hero — pass the rest of his days 
 in misery, as I foresee you will pass your days, if you 
 refuse to seize this chance of happiness that God has 
 given you while there is still time." 
 
 Violet Vesprie sat there mute and still, gazing out 
 of the window upon the sunny landscape with a 
 fixed and dreamy gaze. So absorbed was she in 
 contending with the opposing thoughts that 
 Josephine's words had awakened, that she neither 
 felt her friend's tender embrace nor the soft 
 touch of her hand. Even the whispered words, 
 " Good-bye ! " escaped her as Josephine glided 
 from the room. 
 
 When Violet roused herself out of the absent- 
 minded condition into which the incidents con- 
 nected with Martin Redwood and Josephine had 
 thrown her, she was surprised to find herself alone. 
 She rose hastily and ran upstairs to the studio to 
 look for her friend. But she was not there ; she 
 was nowhere in the house. There were a thousand 
 and one things that Violet was eager to confide, 
 and not finding Josephine indoors, she hurried out 
 into the park, and with a step even more hasty 
 than she had taken when in search of her a few 
 hours ago. 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 299 
 
 Besides the numerous attainments, such as 
 boxing, shooting, fishing, running, riding, and 
 driving, which V^iolet had acquired under her 
 brother Lawrie's tuition in the years of their open- 
 air childhood, she had acquired the art of whisthng. 
 By placing two fingers between her lips in a skil- 
 fully adjusted manner, she could emit a sound shrill 
 enough to be heard distinctly in any corner of the 
 park. It was a whistle to which the children had 
 resorted when in search of each other in Vesprie 
 woods ; and Violet had taught Josephine this 
 elegant accomplishment in the first days of their 
 sojourn together at the Towers. 
 
 Violet now had repeated recourse to this con- 
 venient device while hasteninop on her search 
 through the park and round the willows-ridden banks 
 of the mere. But her penetrating whistle, though 
 rousing innumerable echoes from the distant back- 
 water, and from the neighbouring woods and walled- 
 in boundaries beyond, brought from Josephine no 
 response. 
 
 Violet w^andered disconsolatelv back towards the 
 Towers. As she was passing near the park gates, 
 she caught sight of the lodge-keeper, Lizzie Curtis, 
 on the steps outside the front door. 
 
 "Have you seen Miss Thirlwell ? " said Violet- 
 " I can't find her anywhere." 
 
 " Yes, miss. She went out hours ago." 
 
 " Went out .... ? " 
 
 " Yes, miss. I opened the gate myself to let her 
 out. She's gone to London I'm a-thinkin'." 
 
 " To London ? She never told me a word about 
 it. Do you know what it means ? " 
 
300 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 " Not me, miss. But stop ! She left a letter for 
 you, didn't she ? " 
 
 " No, not that I know of. WTiat makes you 
 think that ? " 
 
 " 'Cos she told me she did," said Lizzie. " She 
 told me, as she was a-goin' out at these very gates, 
 that she'd left a letter for you on the dressing-table 
 in your bedroom. She seemed in a flurry-like, and 
 not herself at all. I did notice that, now I comes 
 to think of it." 
 
 " What else did she say ? Pray tell me every- 
 thing, Lizzie. I can't make out what it means." 
 
 " There's nothing much to tell, miss. I'm a 
 goin' to town, Liz," says she, " and I don't know 
 when I shall be back. But I've left a letter for 
 Miss Vesprie on her dressing-table. Good-bye ! ' 
 That's every word she spoke. But she took my 
 hand hurriedly, she did, and pressed it, and next 
 minute she was gone." 
 
 Violet hastened back to the Towers. She ran 
 to her room, and casting a quick glance towards 
 her dressing-table, she saw, lying beneath the little 
 locket that held the photograph of Martin Redwood, 
 a sealed, oblong letter. It was addressed in 
 Josephine's artistic handwriting. 
 
 "Violet Vesprie, of Vesprie Towers." 
 
 With trembling fingers, she broke the seal. 
 
 It was not a long letter. But everj^ line was 
 expressive of earnestness and of the tenderest 
 affection. In words that revealed the depth of her 
 passionate nature, she frankly confessed that it was 
 her love for Martin Redwood and his interesting 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 301 
 
 talks about a girl named Violet Vesprie and her 
 romantic life at Vesprie Towers had impelled 
 her, when the report of his assassination reaehed 
 her, to seek out John Walton and secure a lease of 
 the Vesprie domain. For it was the spot Martin 
 had loved most in this world, as she had soon dis- 
 covered — the spot where the girl was born, the spot 
 made sacred by her presence in every nook and 
 corner. Josephine further confessed that she had 
 had a premonition that the day w^ould come when 
 this girl, whom he had worshipped so devoutly, 
 would be seized with the impulse to return to her 
 home, the home that she believed could never pass 
 from the Vesprie family. By this means she would 
 be brought into her life and be loved by her because 
 she had been loved by him. For Martin Redwood's 
 sake, Josephine had resolved, she told her, to con- 
 stitute herself her friend — her devoted guardian — 
 even as the " Chevalier Bayard " had done. She 
 had bid the Chevalier good-bye that morning, she 
 concluded, as she was now bidding Violet good-bye, 
 for she had firmly resolved to quit England at once 
 and for ever. 
 
 How lonely the days at Vesprie Towers appeared 
 to Violet now ! And yet in the old days she had 
 never experienced the least sense of loneliness. 
 Before Violet fully realised that Josephine had gone 
 out of her life, almost on the first day of this sudden 
 deprivation, she wrote to John Walton, urging him, 
 if he had any influence over her, to persuade her 
 friend to return to Vesprie Towers. But Walton, 
 while expressing his sympathy, held out little hope 
 
302 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 of success, for " after settling all outstanding busi- 
 ness matters between herself and his firm, Miss 
 Thirlwell," he wrote, "had furnished him with no 
 address where letters would be likely to reach her." 
 But there was another serious matter upon which 
 Violet determined, after some days of distressful 
 hesitation, to consult John Walton. It was her 
 earnest wish — if so delicate an affair could be 
 possibly arranged — to make over to Martin 
 Redwood at least a moiety of that vast sum, 
 " amounting to close upon half a million pounds 
 sterling " (as Walton had expressed it in one of his 
 numerous business letters), that had been be- 
 queathed to her by Redwood's mother. In reply, 
 John Walton had, in his best style of legal formality, 
 assured her that " he would give her generous 
 proposition his prompt attention." 
 
 And now the sense of loneliness at Vesprie Towers 
 grew keener, and presently came to be almost 
 beyond endurance. The weeks that had formerly 
 seemed like days now seemed to Violet Vesprie like 
 tedious years that would never have an end. 
 
 She had bravely endured the dispiriting effect of 
 this solitary life at Vesprie Towers for some weeks, 
 when one afternoon an impulse which she could not 
 explain induced her to wander into her father's 
 library. 
 
 The room contained an antique piece of furniture 
 that had been of absorbing interest to her as far back 
 as she could remember. It was a large oak cabinet, 
 with a semi-circle at the top, surmounted by an 
 angel carved in oak with outspread arms and by 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 303 
 
 carved oaken busts on the capitals, with wide fluted 
 pillars on each side. In front of this cabinet were 
 eight panels, and on each panel was painted a design 
 representing St. George and the Dragon. 
 
 Violet paused before this old bureau, with a 
 dreamy far-away look in her eyes. It was the 
 bureau in which her father had always kept the 
 rainbow topaz. She had often seen him go there 
 and lift it out of its secret nest in the centre of the 
 cabinet, w^hen his spirits w^ere at a low ebb, and carry 
 it to one of the windows and gaze meditatively into 
 its many coloured facets until completely rid of his 
 depression. 
 
 She had deposited the jewel in the drawer on the 
 morning following her return to Vesprie Towers. 
 Since that day she had, strangely enough, as she 
 now reflected, never glanced at her precious stone, 
 scarcely given it, indeed, a single thought. Her life 
 in the woods and meadows throughout this glorious 
 summer, with her enchantress, Josephine Thirlwell, 
 to give the finishing touch to her happiness, had 
 driven thoughts of everything else completely out 
 of her mind. She now opened the cabinet and took 
 out the jew^el. Then, stepping to the window, she 
 removed it from its dilapidated leathern case and 
 gazed at it with a long and steadfast gaze, as 
 she had gazed into it at her garret window in 
 Sunflower Court. 
 
 Suddenly a look of expectancy lit up her eyes. 
 She restored the jewel to its case, and went out 
 with it in her hand into the home park. 
 
 She w^alked in the direction of the mere. On 
 reaching the water's edge, she seated herself on an 
 
304 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 elevated grassy bank. A slight refreshing breeze 
 fanned her healthful cheeks. Whether it so 
 chanced that the invigorating sight of the sparkling 
 topaz which she was looking into so intently, or 
 whatever the cause, Violet had not felt so elated in 
 body or mind since the day when Josephine went 
 out of her life as she felt now, on this brilliant 
 autumnal afternoon. She was shaded from the 
 bright sunlight by the overhanging bough of a huge 
 oak on the rising ground immediately behind her. 
 Of a sudden she looked up, for a gloom had spread 
 over the sky, and she now perceived that rain- 
 clouds were gathering overhead ; and presently 
 heavy drops began to fall, but the great leafy bough, 
 of the oak effectually sheltered her. 
 
 At this moment a curious, magical light apprised 
 her that there was a magnificent rainbow glowing 
 in the eastern sky. In an instant the words of the 
 Vesprie prophecy rose up in her memory : 
 
 " Vesprie luck shall never die, 
 While the rainbow in the sky 
 Makes a rainbow in the water 
 For a sign to son or daughter." 
 
 She sprang to her feet, and stood looking down into 
 the mere. A joyous cry escaped her. For there, 
 in the expanse of water stretching out before her 
 eyes, was a mirrored rainbow, the symbol of the 
 good luck of Vesprie Towers ! 
 
 While she still stood looking with fascinated gaze 
 at this beautiful sight, the strange fancy came to 
 her that near one of the limbs of the reflected rain- 
 bow she could see in the water of the ruffled mere 
 the blurred outlines of her own face and form, and 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 305 
 
 close beside her a face and form that at once 
 reminded her of her hero — Martin Redwood ! 
 
 The figure at her side was clothed in the pic- 
 turesque garb of a yachtsman, standing motionless, 
 cap in hand, and bent slightly forward. 
 
 '' Forgive me ! I've startled you. But — but I 
 couldn't leave the country wdthout thanking you 
 for your offer — which I can never accept — your 
 generous offer to — to share your fortune with me." 
 
 " Generous ? The whole fortune belongs to you. 
 It is yours by right of inheritance, not mine," said 
 Violet, as she turned slowly round to find herself 
 face to face with the young sailor. 
 
 " It belongs to the luck of Vesprie Towers, which, 
 as we are told," said he, " sometimes takes human 
 shape. It has taken human shape on this occasion, 
 as it has done before — in the waters of the mere — 
 in the form of a beautiful young girl." 
 
 Violet made no reply. She stood with the topaz 
 still in her hand, looking dow^n into the lake, w^here 
 the colours of the mirrored rainbow w^ere slowly 
 fading. 
 
 " Yes," Martin Redwood went on, " the form of 
 a young girl who, following the impulse of her sweet 
 nature, once stood up at an osier feast and conde- 
 scended to kiss the forehead of a sailor, her brother's 
 friend, and by that kindly action saved him from 
 drunkenness and utter desolation." 
 
 Violet remained silent, her eyes still bent upon 
 the mere. 
 
 " This girl, who saved her brother's friend from 
 ruin, also befriended a poor starving waif and saved 
 her from a ruin incomparably worse. Indeed, the 
 
 V.T. X 
 
306 VESPRIE TOWERS 
 
 luck of Vesprie Towers never in all its transfigura- 
 tions took so divine a shape. No one has reason 
 to know that better than I. And no one has reason 
 to be more grateful for it. May the luck of Vesprie 
 Towers always retain the form it has taken to-day ! 
 Good-bye ! " 
 
 Violet looked up. The rain-clouds had dis- 
 appeared and every sign of the rainbow had gone 
 out of the sky, and the sunshine came forth, spread- 
 ing in wings of light over meadow and mere. 
 Nature was smiling serenely on every side in all its 
 autumnal beauty. 
 
 " Don't go ! " 
 
 It was an utterance expressive of despair, and as 
 the words fell upon Martin Redwood's ear, the look 
 that came into his face was one of doubt whether 
 he had the right to believe his own senses. He 
 stood dumbfounded, for the plaintive tone was 
 unlike the voice of Violet — so unlike the voice of 
 the imperious mistress of Vesprie Towers. 
 
 " I'm so lonely," she pleaded. " Josephine has 
 left me. I am far more lonely than I was when in 
 London, poverty-stricken and without a friend, 
 except Molly, in the whole world ! There is no one 
 to whom I can speak, or, at least, care to speak, 
 from morning to night. I am utterly lonely 
 here." 
 
 " Lonely at Vesprie Towers ? " said Redwood. 
 " I have always looked upon you as one who found 
 infinite delight in living alone ! You assuredly did 
 so in the old days when — when " 
 
 " Ah, yes ! when I was dreaming my life away in 
 Poverty Island, as I used to call this home when I 
 
THE MEETING BY THE MERE 307 
 
 was here alone with my ancestors. That's what 
 you mean. Yes, yes. But things are so — so 
 different now. I want someone — someone in whom 
 I can confide. I want someone to come to me and 
 — and ..." 
 
 Martin sprang towards her and with sudden 
 impulse clasped her in his arms. 
 
 " And share with you the luck of Vesprie 
 Towers ? " 
 
 " Yes . . . yes ! . . . share with me the luck of 
 Vesprie Towers." 
 
 And placing her hand upon his head, expressing 
 in the action infinite tenderness and passion, she 
 pressed her lips to Martin Redwood's forehead as 
 she had done when standing beside him on the 
 osier ait more than four years ago. 
 
 The day had begun to wane, when Violet Vesprie 
 and her hero, Martin Redwood, side by side, turned 
 from the water's edge and strolled across the meadows 
 down into the elm-tree avenue. And now the 
 faint memory of sunset began to die out below the 
 western horizon, and the old Vesprie elms seemed 
 to wake up in the grey twilight into spectral life and 
 consciousness, and star after star came throbbing 
 out over their heads as the night closed in around 
 them, and the leafy branches stretched out their 
 shadows and screened them from view. 
 
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