Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 49

"I will be a daughter to you in affection and respect," she said--"But I will not take any benefits from you--no, none! Oh, I know well all you could and would do for me!--you would place me in the highest ranks of that society where you are a leader, and you would surround me with so many advantages and powerful friends that I should forget my duty, which is to work for myself, and owe nothing to any man! Dear, kind Lord Blythe!--do not think me ungrateful! But I have made my own little place in the world, and I must keep it--independently! Am I not right, my G.o.dmother?"

Miss Leigh looked at her anxiously, and sighed.

"My dear, you must think well about it," she said--"Lord Blythe would care for you as his own child, I am sure--and his home would be a safe and splendid one for you--but there!--do not ask ME!" and the old lady wiped away one or two trickling tears from her eyes--"I am selfis.h.!.+--and now I know you are Pierce's daughter I want to keep you for myself!--to have you near me!--to look at you and love you!--"

Her voice broke--her gaze instinctively wandered to the portrait of the man whose memory she had cherished so long and so fondly.

"What did you think--what must you have thought the first day you came here when I asked you if you were any relation to Pierce Armitage, and told you that was his portrait!" she said, wistfully.

"I thought that G.o.d had guided me to you," the girl answered, in soft, grave accents--"And that my father's spirit had not forsaken me!"

There was a moment's silence. Then she spoke more lightly--

"Dear Lord Blythe," she said--"Now that you know so much may I tell you my own story? It will not take long! Come and sit here--yes!"--and she placed a comfortable arm-chair for him, while she drew Miss Leigh gently down on the sofa and sat next to her--"It is nothing of a story!--my little life is not at all like the lives lived by all the girls of my age that I have ever met or seen--it's all in the past, as it were,--the old, very old past!--as far back as the days of Elizabeth!"

She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes--she brushed them away and holding Miss Leigh's hand in her own, she told with simple truth and directness the narrative of her childhood's days--her life on Briar Farm--how she had been trained by Priscilla to bake, and brew, and wash and sew,--and how she had found her chief joy and relaxation from household duties in the reading of the old books she had found stowed away in the dower-chests belonging to the "Sieur Amadis de Jocelin."

As she p.r.o.nounced the name with an unconsciously tender accentuation Lord Blythe interrupted her.

"Why, that's a curious thing! I know a rather clever painter named Amadis de Jocelyn--and surely you were dancing with him on the evening I first met you?"

A wave of rosy colour swept over her cheeks.

"Yes!--that is what I was just going to tell you!" she said. "He is another Amadis de Jocelyn!--and he is actually connected with a branch of the same family! HIS ancestor was the brother of that very Amadis who lies buried at Briar Farm! Is it not strange that I should have met him!--and he is going to paint my portrait!"

"Is he indeed!" and Lord Blythe did not look impressed--"I thought he was a landscape man."

"So he is," she explained, with eagerness--"But he can do portraits--and he wishes to make a picture of me, because I have been a student of the books written by one of his ancient line. Those books taught me all I know of literature. You see, it is curious, isn't it?"

"It is," he agreed, rather hesitatingly--"But I've never quite liked Jocelyn--he's clever--yet he has always struck me as being intensely selfish,--a callous sort of man--many artists are."

Her eyes drooped, and her breath came and went quickly.

"I suppose all clever men get self-absorbed sometimes!" she said, with a quaint little air of wisdom--"But I don't think he is really callous--" She broke off, and laughed brightly--"Anyhow we needn't discuss him--need we? I just wanted to tell you what an odd experience it has been for me to meet and to know someone descended from the family of the old French knight whose spirit was my instructor in beautiful things! The little books of his own poems were full of loveliness--and I used to read them over and over again. They were all about love and faith and honour--"

"Very old-fas.h.i.+oned subjects!" said Lord Blythe, with a slight smile--"And not very much in favour nowadays!"

Miss Leigh looked at him questioningly.

"You think not?" she said.

He gave a quick sigh.

"It is difficult to know what to think," he answered--"But I have lived a long life--long enough to have seen the dispersal of many illusions!

I fear selfishness is the keynote of the greater part of humanity.

Those who do the kindest deeds are invariably the worst rewarded--and love in its highest form is so little known that it may be almost termed non-existent. You"--and he looked at Innocent--"you write in a very powerful and convincing way about things of which you can have had no real experience--and therein lies your charm! You restore the lost youth of manhood by idealisation, and you compel your readers to 'idealise' with you--but 'to idealise' is rather a dangerous verb!--and its conjugation generally means trouble and disaster. Ideals--unless they are of the spiritual kind unattainable on this planet--are apt to be very disappointing."

Innocent smiled.

"But love is an ideal which cannot disappoint, because it is everlasting!" she said, almost joyously. "The story of the old French knight is, in its way, a proof of that. He loved his ideal all his life, even though he could not win her."

"Very wonderful if true!" he answered--"But I cannot quite believe it!

I am too familiar with the ways of my own s.e.x! Anyhow, dear child, I should advise you not to make too many ideals apart from the characters in the books you write. Fortunately your special talent brings you an occupation which will save you from that kind of thing. You have ambition as an incentive, and fame for a goal."

She was silent for a moment. In relating the story of her life at Briar Farm she had not spoken of Robin Clifford,--some instinct told her that the sympathies of her hearers might be enlisted in his favour, and she did not want this.

"Well, now you know what my 'literary education' has been," she went on--"Since I came to London I have tried to improve myself as much as I can--and I have read a great many modern books--but to me they seem to lack the real feeling of the old-time literature. For instance, if you read the account of the battle of the Armada by a modern historian it sounds tame and cold,--but if you read the same account in Camden's 'Elizabeth'--the whole scene rises before you,--you can almost see every s.h.i.+p riding the waves!"

Her cheeks glowed and her eyes shone,--Lord Blythe smiled approvingly.

"I see you are an enthusiast!" he said--"And you could not have better teachers than the Elizabethans. They lived in a great age and they were great men. Our times, though crowded with the splendid discoveries of science, seem small and poor compared to theirs. If you ever come to me, I can give you the run of a library where you will find many friends."

She thanked him by a look, and he went on--

"You will come and see me often, will you not?--you and Miss Leigh--by-and-by, when the conventional time of mourning for my poor wife is over. Make my house your second home, both of you!--and when I return from Italy--"

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, impulsively--"Are you going to Italy?"

"For a few weeks--yes!--will you come with me--you and your G.o.dmother?"

His old heart beat,--a sudden joy lighted his eyes. It would have been like the dawn of a new day to him had she consented, but she shook her fair little head decisively.

"I must not!" she said-"-I am bound to finish some work that I have promised. But some day--ah, yes!--some day I should love to see Italy!"

The light went slowly from his face.

"Some day!--well!--I hope I may live to be with you on that 'some day.'

I ought not to leave London just now--but the house is very lonely--and I think I am best away for a time--"

"Much best!" said Miss Leigh, sympathetically--"And if there is anything we can do--"

"Yes--there is one thing that will please me very much," said Lord Blythe, drawing from his pocket a small velvet case--"I want my friend Pierce's daughter to wear this--it was my first gift to her mother."

Here he opened the case and showed an exquisite pendant, in the shape of a dove, finely wrought in superb brilliants, and supported on a thin gold chain. "I gave it as an emblem of innocence"--a quick sigh escaped him--"I little knew!--but you, dear girl, are the one to wear it now!

Let me fasten it round your neck."

She stooped forward, and he took a lingering pleasure in putting the chain on and watching the diamonds flash against her fair skin. She was too much moved to express any worded thanks--it was not the value or the beauty of the gift that touched her, but its a.s.sociation and the way it was given. And then, after a little more desultory conversation, he rose to go.

"Remember!" he said, taking her tenderly by both hands--"Whenever you want a home and a father, both are ready and waiting for you!" And he kissed her lightly on the forehead. "You are famous and independent, but the world is not always kind to a clever woman even when she is visibly known to be earning her own living. There are always spiteful tongues wagging in the secret corners and byways, ready to a.s.sert that her work is not her own and that some man is in the background, helping to keep her!"

He then shook hands warmly with Miss Leigh.

"If she ever comes to me"--he went on--"you are free to come with her--and be a.s.sured of my utmost friends.h.i.+p and respect. I shall feel I am in some way doing what I know my old friend Pierce Armitage would, in his best moments, approve, if I can be of the least service to you.

You will not forget?"

Miss Leigh was too overcome by the quiet sweetness and dignity of his manner to murmur more than a few scarcely audible words of grat.i.tude in reply--and when at last he took his leave, she relieved her heart by throwing her arms round Innocent and having what she called "a good cry."

"And you Pierce's child!" she half laughed, half sobbed--"Oh, how could he leave you at that farm!--poor little thing!--and yet it might have been much worse--"

"Indeed I should think so!" and Innocent soothed her fondly with the tenderest caresses--"Very much worse! Why, if I had not been left at Briar Farm, I should never have known Dad!--and he was one of the best of men--and I should never have learned how to think, and write my thoughts, from the teaching of the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"