Brooke's Daughter Part 22

MAURICE KENYON'S APOLOGY.

Lesley stood irresolute. In the other room she heard the sound of voices calling her own name. "We are just going, Lesley," she heard Mrs.

Romaine say. She made a hurried step towards the door.

"I can't stop," she said. "They will go without me."

"What if they do?" asked Mr. Kenyon. "I'll see you home."

Lesley looked amazed, as well she might, at this masterful way of settling the question. And while she hesitated Maurice acted, as he usually did.

He strode to the door and spoke to Miss Brooke. "I am just showing your niece some of the books: I'll follow in a minute or two with her if you'll kindly walk on. It won't take me more than a minute."

"Then we may as well wait," said Oliver's voice.

Lesley would have been very angry if she had known what happened then.

Mr. Kenyon, by means of energetic pantomime, conveyed to the quick perceptions of Doctor Sophy a knowledge of the fact that Lesley was a little agitated and overcome, and that he was soothing her. And that the departure of the rest of the party would be a blessed relief.

Aunt Sophy was good-natured, and she had complete trust in Maurice Kenyon.

"Don't stay more than a minute or two," she said. "We'll just walk on then--Caspar and I. Mr. Trent is, of course, escorting your sister. Mrs.

Romaine will come with us, and you'll follow?"

"I am quite ready," said Lesley.

"All right," answered Maurice, easily, "I must first show you this book." Then he returned to the library, and she heard the sounds of retreating steps and voices as her father and his party left the building.

"You have no book to show me--you had better come at once," Lesley said, severely. But Mr. Kenyon arrested her.

"I a.s.sure you I have. Look here: the men clubbed together a little while ago and presented your father's works to the library, all bound, you see, in vellum. I need not mention that _he_ had not thought it worth while to give his own books to the club."

He showed her the volumes with pride, as if the presentation had been made to a member of his own family. Lesley touched the books with gentle fingers and reverent eyes. "I have been reading 'The Unexplored,'" she said.

"I knew you would! And I knew you would like it!--I am not wrong?"

"I like it very much. But it is all new to me--so new--I feel like Ione when she first heard of the miseries of England--I have lived in an enchanted world, where everything of that sort was kept from me; so--_how_ could I understand?"

"I know! I know!--You make me doubly ashamed of myself. I have lived, metaphorically, in dust and ashes ever since we had that talk together.

Miss Brooke, I must have seemed to you the most intolerable prig! Can you ever forgive me for what I said?"

"But," said Lesley, looking straight into his face with her clear brown eyes, "if what you said was true?----"

"I had no right to say it."

"That is true," Lesley answered, coldly; and she turned about as though she did not wish to pursue the subject.

"But can you not forgive me for it? I was unjustifiably angry I confess; but since I confess it----"

"Mr. Kenyon, we ought to be going home. I see the woman is waiting to put the lights out."

"We will go home if you like--certainly," said Maurice, in a tone of vexed disappointment. "Take care of the step--yes, here is the door. I am afraid we cannot get a cab in this neighborhood; but as soon as we reach a more civilized locality, I will do my best to find one for you."

By this time they were in the yard. Night had already fallen on the city, whether it had done so in the country or not. The lamps were lighted in the streets; a murky fog had settled like a pall upon the roads; and in the Sunday silence the church bells rang out with a mournful cadence which affected Lesley's spirits.

"London is a terrible place," she said, with a little s.h.i.+ver.

"Can you say that," he asked, looking at her curiously, "after seeing the good work that is being done here? If it is a terrible place, it is also a very n.o.ble and inspiring one."

"I know I am ignorant," said Lesley, heavily. "It seems terrible to me."

They were silent for a minute or two, for they were pa.s.sing out of the yard belonging to the "model dwellings," as Macclesfield Buildings were called, into the squalid street beyond; and in avoiding the group of loafers smoking the pipe of idleness, and enjoying the comfortable repose of sloth, Lesley and Mr. Kenyon were so far separated that conversation became impossible.

"You had better take my arm," said Maurice, shortly, almost sternly.

"You must, indeed: the place is not fit for you. I ought to have gone out and got a cab."

"Indeed, I do not need it. I can walk quite well. What other people do, I suppose I can do as well."

"Miss Brooke, you have not forgiven me."

Lesley was silent.

"What can I say? I have no justification. I simply let my tongue and my temper run away with me. I am cursed with a hot temper: I do not think before I speak; but I never intended to hurt you, Miss Brooke, I am sure of that."

"No," said Lesley, very quietly, "I understand you. If you had not thought me so stupid as not to see your meaning, or so callous as not to care if I did, you would not have spoken in that way. I don't know that your excuse makes matters much better, Mr. Kenyon. But I am not offended: you need not concern yourself."

"Then you ought to be offended," said Kenyon, doggedly. "And I don't believe you."

"You don't believe me."

"No, indeed I don't."

Lesley's offence was so great now, whatever it had been before, that it deprived her of the power of speech. Her stately head went up: her mouth set itself in straight, hard lines. Maurice saw these tokens, and interpreted them aright.

"Don't be angry with me again. I mean that you could not fail to despise me, to look down on me, for my want of tact and sense. I thought that you did not understand your father--I was vexed at that, because I have such a respect, such an admiration for him--but I know now that I was mistaken. You ought to be angry with me, for I acknowledge that I spoke impertinently; but having been angry, you can now be merciful and forgive. I apologize from the bottom of my heart."

"How do you know that I understand my father? Why have you changed your opinion?" said Lesley, coldly. "You have nothing to go upon--just as in the other case you had nothing to go upon. You rushed to one conclusion, if you will excuse me for saying so, and now you rush to another--with no better reason."

"You are very severe, Miss Brooke," said Maurice. "But you are perfectly right, and I must not complain. Only--if I may make a representation----"

"Oh, certainly!"

"----I might point out that when I spoke to you first you had not read your father's book, you had not, I believe, even heard of it; that you knew nothing about the Macclesfield Club, and that when I spoke to you about his work amongst the poor you were very much inclined to murmur, 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'"

"Mr. Kenyon----"

"I beg your pardon, Miss Brooke, but isn't that substantially true? If you can honestly say that it is a misapprehension on my part, I won't say another word. But isn't it all true?"

He turned his eager face and bright blue eyes towards her, and read in her pale, troubled face a little of the conflict that was going on between her candor and her pride. "Now, what will she say?" he thought, with what would have seemed to Lesley incomprehensible anxiety. "On her answer depends my opinion of her, now and for ever."