Brooke's Daughter Part 9

Lesley felt that she was being somewhat unjustly judged, but she did not like to reply. And her aunt, conscious of having spoken sharply, became immediately more gentle in manner, and told her certain details about the arrangements of the house, which it behoved Lesley to know, with considerable thoughtfulness and kind feeling.

Mr. Brooke usually rang for his coffee about half-past ten, and came down at half-past eleven. He then had breakfast served to him in the dining-room, and did not join his sister at luncheon at all. In the afternoon he walked out, or wrote, or saw friends; dined at six, and went down to the office of his paper at eight. From the office he did not usually return until the small hours of the morning; and then, as Miss Brooke explained, he often sat up writing or reading for an hour or two longer.

"Why does he work so late?" asked Lesley, innocently. "I should have thought the day-time was pleasanter."

Miss Brooke gave a short, explosive laugh, fixed a pair of eyegla.s.ses on the bridge of her nose, and looked at Lesley as if she were a natural curiosity.

"Have you yet to learn," she said, "that we don't do what is pleasant in this life, but what we _must_?"

Then she got up and went away from the breakfast-table, leaving Lesley ashamed and confounded. The girl leaned her elbows upon the white cloth, and furtively wiped a tear away from her eyes. She found herself in a new atmosphere, and it did not seem to her a very congenial one. She was bewildered; it did not appear possible that she could live for a year in a home of this very peculiar kind. To her uncultivated imagination, Mr.

Brooke and his sister looked to her like barbarians. She did not understand their ways at all.

She spent the morning in unpacking her things, and arranging them, with rather a sad heart, in her room. She did not like to go downstairs until the luncheon-bell rang; and then she found that she was to lunch alone.

Miss Brooke was out; Mr. Brooke was in his study.

The white-capped and severe-visaged middle-aged servant, who was known as Sarah, came to Lesley after the meal with a message.

"Mr. Brooke says, Miss, that he would like to see you in his study, if you can spare him a few minutes."

Lesley flushed hotly as she was shown into the smoky, little den. It was a scene of confusion, such as she had never beheld before. The table was heaped high with papers: books and maps strewed every chair: even the floor was littered with bulky tomes and piles of ma.n.u.script. At a knee-hole table Caspar Brooke was sitting, writing hard, as if for dear life, his loose hair falling heavily over his big forehead, his left hand grasping his thick brown beard. He looked up as Lesley entered, and gave her a nod.

"Good-morning," he said. "Wait a minute: I must finish this and send it off by the quarter to three post. I have just done."

He went on writing, and Lesley stood motionless beside the table, with a feeling of dire offence in her proud young heart. Why had he sent for her if he did not want her? She was half inclined to walk away without another word. Only a sense of filial duty restrained her. She thought to herself that she had never been treated so unceremoniously--even in her earliest days at school. And she was surprised to find that so small a thing could ruffle her so much. She had hardly known at the convent, or while visiting her mother, that she had such a thing as a "temper." It suddenly occurred to her now that her temper was very bad indeed.

And in truth she had a hot, strong temper--very like her father's, if she had but known it--and a will that was p.r.o.ne to dominate, not to submit itself to others. These were facts that she had yet to learn.

"Well, Lesley," said Caspar Brooke, laying down his pen, "I have finished my work at last. Now we can talk."

CHAPTER VII.

FRIENDS AND FOES.

Something in the slightly mutinous expression of Lesley's face seemed to strike her father. He looked at her fixedly for a minute or two, then smiled a little, and began to busy himself amongst his papers.

"You are very like your mother," he said.

Lesley felt a thrill of strong indignation. How dared he speak of her mother to her without shame and grief and repentance? She flushed to her temples and cast down her eyes, for she was resolved to say nothing that she might afterwards regret.

"Won't you sit down?" said Mr. Brooke, indifferently. "You must make yourself at home, you know. If you don't, I'm afraid you will be uncomfortable. You will have to look after yourself."

Lesley made no answer. She was thinking that it would be very disagreeable to look after herself. She did not know how clearly her face expressed her sentiments.

"You don't much like the prospect, apparently?" said her father.

"Well"--for he was becoming a little provoked by her silence--"what _would_ you like? Do you want a maid?"

"Oh, no, thank you," said Lesley, startled into speech.

"You can have one if you like, you know. Speak to your aunt about it. I suppose you have not been accustomed to wait upon yourself. Can you do your own hair?"

He spoke with a smile, half-indulgent, half-contemptuous. Lesley remembered, with intuitive comprehension of his mood, that her mother was singularly helpless, and never dressed without Dayman's help, or brushed the soft tresses that were still so luxuriant and so fair. She rebelled at once against the unspoken criticism.

"I can do everything for myself," she said; "I can do my own hair and mend my dresses and everything, because I am a schoolgirl; but of course when I am older I expect to have my own maid, as every lady does."

Mr. Brooke's short, hard laugh was distinctly unpleasing to her ear.

"I think you will find, when you are older," he said, with an emphasis on the words, "that a great many ladies have to do without maids--and very much better for them that they should--but as I do not wish to stint you in anything, nor to oppose any fairly reasonable desire of yours, I will tell your aunt to get you a maid as soon as possible."

"Oh, no, please!" cried Lesley, more alarmed than pleased by the prospect. "I really do not wish for one; I do not wish you to have the trouble--the ex----"

She stopped short: she did not quite like to speak of the "expense."

"It will not be much trouble to me if Sophia finds you a maid," said her father drily; "and as to the expense, which is what I suppose you were going to allude to, I am quite well able to afford it. Otherwise I should not have proposed such a thing."

Lesley felt herself snubbed, and did not like it, but again kept silence.

"I cannot promise you much amus.e.m.e.nt while you stay here," Mr. Brooke went on, "but anything that you like to see or hear when you are in town can be easily provided for. I mean in the way of picture galleries, concerts, theatres--things of that kind. Your Aunt Sophia will probably be too much occupied to take you to such places; but if you have a maid you will be pretty independent. I wonder she did not think of it herself. Of course a maid can go about with you, and so relieve her mind."

"I am sorry to be troublesome," said Lesley, stiffly.

He cast an amused glance at her. "You won't trouble _me_, my dear. And Mrs. Romaine says that she will call and make your acquaintance. I dare say you will find her a help to you."

"Is she--a friend of yours?"

"A very old friend," said Caspar Brooke, with decision. "Then there are the Kenyons, who live opposite. Ethel Kenyon is a clever girl--a great favorite of mine. Her brother is a doctor."

"And she lives with him and keeps his house?" said Lesley, growing interested.

"Well, she lives with him. I don't know that she does much in the way of keeping his house. I hope I shall not shock your prejudices"--how did he know that she had any prejudices?--"if I tell you that she is an actress."

"An actress!"--Lesley flushed with surprise, even with a little horror, though at the same moment she was conscious of a movement of pleasant curiosity and a desire to know what an actress was like in private life.

"I thought you would be horrified," said her father, looking at her with something very like satisfaction. "How could you be anything else? How long have you lived in a French convent? Eight or ten years, is it not?

Ah, well, I can't be surprised if you have imbibed the conventional idea of what you would call, I suppose, your cla.s.s." He gave a little shrug to his broad shoulders. "It can't be helped now. You must make yourself as happy as you can, my poor child, as long as you are here, and console yourself with visions of your happy future at the Courtleroys'."

It was exactly what Lesley intended to do, and yet she felt hurt by the slightly contemptuous pity of his tone.

"I have no doubt that I shall be very happy," she said, steadying her voice as well as she could; "and I hope that you will not concern yourself about me."

"I should not have time to do so if I wished," he answered coolly. "I never concern myself about anything but my proper business, which is _not_ to look after girls of eighteen----"

"Then why did you send for me here?" she asked, with lightning rapidity.

The question seemed to surprise him. He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her.