Brooke's Daughter Part 23

And this appeared to Maurice quite an important matter, though possibly Lesley might not have thought it so.

She turned to him at last with a frank, decisive gesture.

"It _is_ true," she said. "I knew nothing about his books or his works, and so how could I appreciate them? I had never heard of 'The Unexplored' before. You are right, and I had no business to be so angry.

But how do you know that I am different now?"

"Oh, I know you are," said Maurice, confidently. "You have come to the club for one thing, you see; and you sang to the people and looked at them--well, as if you cared. And you have read 'The Unexplored' _now_?"

"Yes. I have," said Lesley, hesitatingly.

"And you like it?"

"Yes--I like it." The girl looked away, and went on nervously, hesitatingly. "It is very well done," she said, "It is very clever."

"Oh, if that is all you can find to say about it!"

"But isn't it a great deal?--Mr. Kenyon, I don't know what to say about it. You see I can't be sure whether it is all--true."

"True? The story? But, of course----"

"Of course the _story_ is not true. I am not such a goose as that. But is the meaning of it true? the moral, so to speak? Is there so much wickedness in the world as my father says? So much vice and wealth and selfishness on the one side: so much misery and poverty and crime on the other? You are a doctor, and you must have seen a great deal of London life: you ought to know. Is it an exaggeration, or is it true?"

There was such intensity and such pathos in her tones that Kenyon was silent for a minute or two, startled by the vivid reality which she had attached to her father's views and ideas. He could not have answered her lightly, even if it had been in his nature to do so.

"Before G.o.d," he said, solemnly, "it is all true--every word of it."

"Then what can we do," said Lesley, gently, "but go down into the midst of it and help?"

Mr. Maurice Kenyon, being a man of ardent temperament, always vows that he lost his heart to Lesley there and then. It is possible that if she had not been a very pretty girl, the most n.o.ble of sentiments might have fallen unheeded from her lips; but as she was "so young, so sweet, so delicately fair," Kenyon could not hear his own opinions reciprocated without an answering thrill. How delightful would it be to walk through life with a woman of this kind by one's side! a woman, whose face was a picture, whose every movement a poem, whose soul was as finely touched to fine issues as that of an angel or a saint! All these reflections rushed through his mind in an instant, and it was almost a wonder that he did not blurt some of them out at once. But Lesley went on speaking in a quiet, pensive way.

"I wonder whether I can do anything--while I am here. I shall not have so very long a time, but I might try."

"Not so long a time, Miss Brooke? I thought you had come home for good."

"Only for a year," said Lesley, coloring hotly. "Then I go back to mamma."

Maurice said nothing at first. He felt the hand that rested on his arm tremble slightly, and he knew that he ought to make no more inquiries.

But he could not refrain from adding, almost jealously--

"You will be glad of that?"

"Oh, yes! You do not know my mother?" said Lesley, half shyly, half boldly.

"No, I never saw her."

"It is very hard to be so long away from her. She is so sweet and good."

"But you have your father? You are learning to know _him_ now."

"Oh, yes, but I want them _both_," said Lesley, with an indescribably gentle and tender intonation. And as they reached Euston Road and were obliged to leave off talking while they threaded their way through the intricacies of vehicular traffic, Mr. Kenyon was revolving in his mind a new idea, namely, the possibility of a reconciliation between Brooke and his wife. He had never thought much about Lady Alice before: she seemed to him to have pa.s.sed out of Caspar Brooke's life entirely; and if it were not for this link between the two--this sweet and n.o.ble-spirited and lovely girl--she would not have been likely to come back into it.

But Lesley might perhaps reunite the two, and Maurice's heart began to burn within him with fear for his hero's happiness. Why should any Lady Alice trouble the peace of a worker for mankind like Caspar Brooke?

They did not talk very much more on their way to Upper Woburn Place.

They found Ethel and Oliver standing on the steps of Mr. Brooke's house, evidently waiting for the truants. It struck Lesley as she came up that Oliver Trent's brow was ominously dark, and that Ethel's pretty, saucy face wore an expression of something like anxiety or distress.

"We are almost tired of waiting for you, good people," she began merrily. "Fortunately it is fine and warm, or we should have gone and left you to your own devices, as Mr. Brooke and Rosalind have done."

"Where have they gone?" asked Maurice.

"Walked off to her house. Miss Brooke is at home. Lesley, you _are_ an imposition! Think of having a voice like that, and keeping it dark all this time."

"We shall requisition Miss Brooke for the club very often, I know that,"

said Maurice.

"You'll come in with us, Lesley?" Ethel asked.

"No, thank you, Ethel. Not to-day. Thanks."

She wondered a little nervously why Oliver was looking so vexed and--yes, so miserable, too! He seemed terribly out of spirits. Had he and Ethel quarrelled? The thought gave a look of tender inquiry to her eyes as she held out her hand to him. And on meeting that sweet glance, Oliver's face brightened. He had been feeling an unreasonable annoyance with her for walking home with Maurice Kenyon, and had even in his heart called her "a little French flirt." Though why it should matter to him that she was a flirt, did not exactly appear.

They said good-bye to each other, and separated. Maurice went off to see a patient; Oliver accompanied Ethel to her own house; Lesley entered her own home.

She was alone for an hour or two, and, to tell the truth, she felt rather dull. Miss Brooke went away to her circle of select souls, and her father, as she knew, had gone to Mrs. Romaine's. She took out her much-prized volume of "The Unexplored," and began to read it again; wis.h.i.+ng that she could talk to her mother about it, and explain to her how really great and good a man her father was. For--she had got as far as this--she was sure that her mother did not understand him. It would have been impossible for him to do a mean, a cruel, a dishonorable action. There had been a misunderstanding somewhere; and Lesley wished, with her whole soul, that she could clear it up.

The sound of the opening and closing of the front door did not arouse her from her dreams. She read on, holding the little paper-covered volume on her lap, deep in deepest thought, until the door of the drawing-room opened rather suddenly, and her father walked in.

It was an unusual hour at which to see him in the drawing-room, and Lesley looked up in surprise. Then, half unconsciously, half timidly, she drew her filmy embroidered handkerchief over the book in her lap.

She had a shy dislike to letting her father see what she was reading.

He did not seem, however, to take any notice of her occupation. He walked straight to an arm-chair on the opposite side of the hearth, sat down, stretching out his long legs, and placing his elbows on the arms of the chair. The unruly lock of hair, which no hairdresser could tame, had fallen right across his broad brow, and heightened the effect of a very undeniable frown. Mr. Caspar Brooke was in anything but an amiable temper.

It was with a laudable attempt, however, to keep the displeasure out of his voice that he said at length--

"I thought I understood you to say, Lesley, that you were not musical!"

The color flushed Lesley's face to the very roots of her hair.

"I do not think I am--very musical," she said, trying to answer bravely.

"I play the piano very little."

"Of course you must know that that is a quibble," said Mr. Brooke, dryly. "A talent for music does not confine itself solely to the piano.

I presume that you have been told that you have a good voice?"

"Yes, I have been told so."

"And you have had lessons?"

"Yes, a few."