CHAPTER I.

I WONDER whether, if you had seen Lady Lucy sitting at her work that warm August morning, you would have thought her a person to be envied. She certainly looked very pretty, and not at all unhappy, as she sat in her straight-backed chair, carrying her long-waisted, snugly-laced little figure very upright, her shoulders down, and her chin drawn in,—bridled, as the phrase went. In those days—for this was at the beginning of the eighteenth century—great attention was paid to the carriage of young ladies,—more than appears to be thought necessary at the present time, to judge by the attitudes into which I often see little girls throw themselves, even in company. They were taught to sit and stand very upright, to carry their arms carefully, to turn out their toes and hold up their heads. No stooping was permitted over books or work; and while Lady Lucy was living with her aunt Bernard, she used to have a bunch of knitting-needles stuck into her bodice, to keep her from "poking" over her work.

Lady Lucy was young,—only a little past eleven years old,—and small for her age: nevertheless, she was the rightful heir of the splendid room in which she now sat, with its heavy carved furniture, its worked tapestry hangings, and inlaid cabinets,—of the fine old house, Stanton Court,—of the lovely gardens and shrubbery which lay stretched before the windows, and the beautiful park, and many a farm and moorland besides. She could only just remember her mother as a delicate lady, with beautiful long black hair and dark eyes, who was very kind to her and used to talk to her in a musical, soft-sounding language, which was not English, nor at all like any tongue she ever heard nowadays. When Lady Lucy learned to be confidential with Cousin Debby, she told her of this strange language in which her mother used to talk; and Cousin Debby informed her that the language was Italian, and that some day she should learn it herself.

When Lucy thought of her mother, it was always as sitting down on the floor to play with her, or hearing her say her prayers, or else as she lay in her coffin all dressed in white, when Aunt Bernard would make the child kiss the cold face, and called her an unfeeling, heartless girl, because she had cried and screamed to get away and had declared that that was not her mother. Lucy almost thought that she began to hate Aunt Bernard from that moment. Certainly there was always war between them from that day; and, though Aunt Bernard was the stronger and compelled the child to obey, she never won her love.

It was not so very pleasant, after all, this being an heiress, with no father or mother to love and pet one, no little sisters for playmates to help dress the doll or nurse the kitten, or to make foxglove dolls and cowslip-balls, or tell tales in the seat under the tall old elm. Aunt Bernard said that, for her part, she meant to do her duty by the child: there would be people enough to spoil and flatter her by-and-by. I really think, too, that when she began she meant what she said,—though she was perhaps mistaken as to what constituted her duty but, as the time wore on, and she could not but see that Lucy disliked her, she began in her turn to dislike Lucy and the poor child led a hard life of it.

Aunt Bernard lived in a beautiful place. It was an old timbered house, of which the beams were black with age and the plastered spaces between marked off into patterns. There was a beautiful though not very large garden, with green alleys and grass-plots, where Lucy would have liked to play if she had been allowed, and where grew abundance of flowers. At the bottom of the garden was a tall hedge, clipped close and smooth like a wall, with arched openings leading through to another green, beyond which, again, was a pretty stream where ducks and geese, and one old swan, sailed up and down all day long.

Lucy would have enjoyed playing on the green, and sailing little boats upon the stream, and throwing bits of bread to the waterfowls but she was never allowed to do any of these things. If she ever ventured to run or romp, she was reminded that she was a lady,—a countess in her own right,—and that she must not demean herself like the parson's little girls, who worked in the hay-field, or gathered cowslips for wine in the meadows, or herbs and roots for their mother to distil into medicines and cordials. Lucy used many times to wish that she had been the daughter of that stout, good-natured gentleman and his plump, rosy little wife, who walked to church every Sunday morning followed by their ten children, two by two, and looking so happy and pleasant. True, the little Burgess girls hardly ever seemed to have new gowns or hoods, even for Sundays, and their weekday frocks were coarse and mended but she was sure that Polly and Dulcie Burgess were much happier than she was. But when she ventured to express this thought to Hannah, her aunt's waiting-woman, Hannah reproved her sharply, and added that it served Mrs. Kitty Lindsay right for marrying a poor parson, that she should have such a host of children and nothing to keep them decent.

Poor Lucy could not make hay, or gather primroses in the lanes, or carry jugs of skim-milk to the poor old people, as Polly Burgess did. She must practise on her lute so many hours a day, instead of singing sweet old country songs and ballads like Polly and her sister. She must work at her sampler and her satin stitches so many hours more, and read and write so much longer. She must read so many chapters in the Bible aloud to Aunt Bernard, taking them as they came, whether it were a long chapter of hard names and nothing else, or a beautiful story in the New Testament. She must learn her lesson standing in the stocks to make her turn her toes out, and carrying a heavy bag of beans upon her head that she might attain a good carriage, or strapped up to a back-board or lying flat upon the floor, to straighten her back.

If there was daylight enough after all this was done, she might walk up and down the green path in the garden and around the shrubbery for a certain length of time. There was one place in her walk where Lucy was out of sight of the garden-windows for some little distance and here she used to peep among the branches for the birds' nests, and strew for the robin-redbreasts the few crumbs she could contrive to save from her breakfast. There was a garden-seat, too, old and broken, where she could venture to rest a few minutes and look at the sky or the water, while she thought about her mother and wondered if she remembered her poor little girl who was so very, very unhappy and lonely without her.

Lucy did not think so much about her father. She had only seen him twice since she could remember, when he had come from the wars. She thought he must have been a good man, because her mother had been so happy when he came home; and she was sure he was kind to her and used to give her rides upon his shoulder or his foot. She remembered, too, the day when the news came of his death, and she had been dressed in black and told it was for her dear papa who had been killed in the wars abroad. But it was of her mother that she loved to think at such times, even though the remembrance made her feel more unhappy than ever.

Poor little Lucy! It was a sad, irksome life. It would have been dull enough if Aunt Bernard had been kind to her but she was not. She did not love the little girl. She envied her because Lucy was rich, and she herself poor, or, at least, not wealthy. She had hated her mother before her, and she visited it on her little daughter. Lucy could never do any thing right. Whether she sat or stood, ate or drank, worked, read, or played, Aunt Bernard always saw something to find fault with. Nor was fault-finding the worst. Aunt Bernard carried a fan with a long whalebone handle, and there were few days in which the impression of that whalebone was not printed upon Lucy's shoulders or arms, nor many weeks during which she was not sent supperless to bed in the dark.

She would have fared worse than she did, if Margery, the cook, had not pitied the child. Sometimes Margery would contrive to bring her a cake or a biscuit; and when Mrs. Bernard went away on a visit with her waiting-woman Hannah, Margery would make feasts for Lady Lucy in the kitchen, and sometimes allow her to bake little cakes for herself. These were Lucy's happy days, when she could sit in a corner of the great chimney and watch the cook bustling about her work, or the milkmaid bringing in her pails of fresh milk and carrying out buckets of whey to the pigs. It made no difference to Lucy that her aunt always forbade her going into the kitchen,—unless, indeed, it rather added to her pleasure to think that she was disobeying Aunt Bernard and for once having her own way. It was perhaps the worst result of that lady's system of management that Lucy learned to take pleasure in deceiving and outwitting her.

One day, however,—one memorable, miserable day,—all these surreptitious feasts came to a sudden end. I will tell you about it particularly, because it was the means of bringing about a great change in Lucy's manner of life.

On this day Aunt Bernard set out in her carriage to make a visit at Langham Hall, some twenty miles away. She was to stay over-night with Lady Langham and return home the next evening. She left Lucy plenty of work to do, and many injunctions as to her conduct, and threats as to what would happen if she were disobedient.

Lucy stood demurely at the door and watched the carriage out of sight and hearing. Then she started and ran like a hare down the garden, and through the gate in the holly hedge, to the water-side, but presently came running back to beg for some bits of bread to feed the swan.

"Bless the poor child!" said kind old Margery. "'Tis like a kitten let out of a basket, to be sure. But, Lady Lucy, my dear, had you not better do your tasks before you go to play?"

"I cannot do them all before my aunt comes home again,—no, not if I were to work all night, Margery!" said Lucy, shaking her head. "And if I have the least bit undone I shall be scolded and beaten as much as if I had not touched them: so where is the use? I may just as well play while I can."

"'Tis true what the child says," remarked Anne, the housemaid, as Margery looked grave: "my mistress has left her marking and open-hem enough for a grown woman, besides all her other tasks,—more shame to her, I say, to have no feeling for her own flesh and blood! Never mind, Lady Lucy: I will take hold of it when my work is done, and you shall have one good play. But you must mind and wear your gloves and your hood, and not break your nails and scratch your hands with the brambles, or my mistress will find you out."

"I don't feel right about teaching and helping the child to deceive her aunt," said Margery, when Lucy had rather unwillingly gone to seek her hood.

"I don't care one pin," replied Anne, decidedly. "If my mistress treated any of us with any confidence, or put any trust in one, it would be different; but so long as she and Hannah are always spying and prying about, and won't believe a word one says, even though it should be gospel truth, why, they may just find out what they can, for all me. I shall just sit down and do up the child's open-hem for her, and my mistress may find out the difference if she can. It will not be the first trick I have played her in my time,—nor you either, Mistress Margery."

Margery sighed, and shook her head. She was not satisfied with Anne's reasoning, nor did her own conscience acquit her in the matter, but she was very fond of Lucy, and loved to see the child happy for once, as she said. So she set about making currant buns and a gooseberry fool—an old-fashioned country dish, than which there are few better—for Lucy's supper. But Lucy was not destined to the enjoyment of these dainties.

She played in the garden and down by the brook as long as she could see, forgetting for a while books, lute, and all the rest of her torments. She talked to Polly Burgess across the stream, and watched her as she milked her own little black Welsh cow, wishing all the time that she had a cow to milk and take care of. At last she yielded to Anne's entreaties that she would come in out of the dew and eat her supper.

She had just settled herself comfortably at the little table which Margery had set out in the corner, and was watching with quiet satisfaction the toasting of the currant buns, when the door of the kitchen was opened, and Aunt Bernard, entering quietly as usual, stood transfixed with amazement and anger at the sight which met her eyes. There was Lady Lucy, in the kitchen, actually leaning with both elbows on the table, and her chin resting on her hands, watching Margery, who was on her knees toasting the buns, and laughing and joking with old Roger, the cow-man; while Anne had actually a whole new mould candle lighted at her elbow, and was busily working at the open-hem ruffle!

Aunt Bernard had gone more than half her journey, when she was met by a messenger sent to tell her that the family at Langham Hall were in great trouble,—that the smallpox had broken out in the house, and my lady's two daughters were down with that dreadful disease, for which in those days no preventive was known. Of course all thought of the visit was now out of the question, and Aunt Bernard turned homeward in no good humour. It was destined to be a day of misfortunes; for about a mile from home the carriage broke down, and Aunt Bernard was obliged to walk home, in her best brocade and carriage-shoes, over a road far from good in the best of times, and now sloppy and dirty from two or three days' rain. It was in no placid mood, therefore, that she opened the kitchen-door, to find her family in her absence violating almost every rule she had ever laid down for them.

It was upon Lucy, as usual, that her wrath fell heaviest. The poor child had never in all her sad life been so berated. Ladies in those days were used to employ language for which in these a housemaid would be dismissed; and when Aunt Bernard was angry there were few names too hard to be bestowed upon Lucy. Nor was this the worst. Aunt Bernard declared that Lucy was the true child of her mother, that foreign woman who had deceived and ensnared her poor brother to his ruin; that her mother had been a liar, and worse; and that Lucy was fast following in her steps down to perdition.

As she went on, Lucy, who had seemed stunned at first, lifted up her head and looked Mrs. Bernard steadily in the face, while her colour rose, and her large black eyes flashed fire.

"Aunt Bernard, you are a wicked woman to speak so of my dear mother," said she. "Mamma was a lovely lady; and my father loved her. She is an angel now; and when you call her bad names, it is you that are the liar, and not she."

Aunt Bernard stood as if stunned, for a moment. Then she seized Lucy by the arm.

"Down on your knees, this moment!" said she, sternly, and at the same time trying to force her to kneel. "Down upon your knees, this moment, and beg my pardon!"

"I will not!" returned Lucy, resisting with all her strength. "I will never beg your pardon. I hate you, Aunt Bernard, with my whole heart! I would rather live with the dogs in the parson's kennel than with you."

Aunt Bernard said no more, but, dragging Lucy out of the kitchen, and up the stairs to a disused attic, she thrust her in by main force, and shut the door behind her. The maids could only guess what passed by hearing Lucy's cries and screams. Presently Aunt Bernard came down-stairs and into the kitchen, expecting to find Anne and Margery in a great fright She was mistaken.

"Mistress," said old Margery, rising, and standing before her with folded arms, "is it your purpose to let that child remain all night in that desolate chamber?"

"That is no business of yours, Margery; but, since you ask me, I will tell you that it is my purpose to keep her a prisoner, and upon prisoners' diet, and that of the sparest. She shall neither come out of that room, nor shall she see other food than brown bread and water, till she kneels to me and begs my pardon,—nor then, unless I see fit to grant it. I will break that proud spirit, or I will know why. Nay, I will not hear a word," she added, sternly, as she saw Margery preparing to speak. "You and Anne will find you have done the child little good with your coddlings and cossetings."

"Then, madam," said the old woman, not without dignity, "you will please suit yourself with another cook. I have served you for many a year, and did not think to leave you during my life; but I will never stay under a roof where an orphan child is so treated. The day after to-morrow is quarter-day: so you will please suit yourself with a cook."

"And with a housemaid also, mistress," said Anne. "'Tis well known that an orphan's curse will bring destruction upon the proudest house; and I, for one, have no wish to abide it. Every one knows how the lightning struck Farmer Dobson's stacks and barns after he turned his wife's poor daughter out of doors, and what happened to the uncle of the Babes in the Wood."

Anne spoke according to the superstitions of the time; nor was Mrs. Bernard's mind so free from it that a shudder did not pass over her at the girl's bold words. But she was proud and obstinate,—firm and dignified she called herself. Her own conscience told her that she was cruel and unforgiving,—that she visiting on Lucy's head not so much the child's fault as her own vexation. But she would not listen. Her evil passions were aroused, and had become her masters.

"You must do as you please," said she, coldly. "I shall doubtless find other servants in your place easier than you will find other services,—especially at your age, Margery."

"I can't help that," said Anne, tossing her head. "Better a crust in quietness than a full dish under the curse of the orphan."

Two or three days passed on, and nothing was seen of Lucy. She remained shut up in her attic chamber, visited by her aunt or Hannah once a day, with scanty and coarse provisions. Sometimes the girls, listening, heard her sobbing as if her heart would break, sometimes moaning faintly; but Mrs. Bernard kept close watch, and they could not get near her.

"I can't stand this any longer," said Anne to Margery, the third day. "The child will die before she will give way, and her blood will be on all our heads. I shall go to Parson Burgess and tell him the story. He is justice as well as parson; and we will see if something cannot be done." *

* In England, the rector, or minister, of a parish is not unfrequently a justice also.

"Do," said Margery. "No one can tell whether it will do any good; but things must not go on as they are. I know my mistress's temper but too well. It was just such a time as this with Lady Lucy which drove my poor young master to sea, where he perished miserably."

It was not long before Anne was at the parson's gate, where she found the children all assembled, some admiring and feeding with grass the two beautiful horses which stood before the door, some watching half timidly the negro servant who held them, and who was trying to coax the youngest little girl to come to him. Anne's tale was soon told to Polly, who, as the eldest, was exercising a sort of supervision over the little ones.

"What a shame!" exclaimed the warm-hearted girl, as Anne concluded her tale, which lost nothing from her manner of telling it. "Oh, if my father were only alone! There is a great gentleman with him, who came just now; and we must not interrupt him."

"Tell mother," said Dulcie, the second girl: "mother will know what to do. And here she comes now."

Mistress Burgess listened to Anne's repetition of the sad tale.

"Isn't it a shame, mother?" exclaimed the girls. "Poor little Lady Lucy!"

"Are you sure you are telling the truth, my girl?" asked Mistress Burgess, bending her mild, penetrating eyes on Anne's face, and hushing with an upraised finger the clamours of the children. "Recollect yourself; for this is a matter of the last importance, and you are come in the nick of time. The gentleman who arrived this morning is Lady Lucy's father."

"Why, mamma, I thought he was dead long ago!"

"And so thought every one; but it turns out a mistake. He was wounded and left for dead, and only recovered to find himself in a French prison, where he has languished all these years till just now that he has been exchanged; not by his own title,—for as Lord Stanton, he had been condemned to death, and had only saved his life by taking the name of his servant, who died in his cell. He has known naught of his own family,—not even that his poor wife was dead."

Anne was not a little daunted when she found herself in presence of the parson and his guest, the tall, stately soldier. But she was a girl of spirit, and confident in the goodness of her cause; and she told a simple, straight-forward story, from which all the cross-questioning of Dr. Burgess and Lord Stanton did not cause her to vary an inch.

"I thank you, my girl," said Lord Stanton, at last. "I shall not forget your services and, meantime, here is a token for you," (putting a gold piece in her hand). "You will please say nothing of this at the Grange till I come. I wish to see the state of things for myself, and will follow you directly."

"And a nice surprise it will be for my mistress," thought Anne, as she curtsied, and retired, well pleased with her day's work. "I am sure I will say nothing to spoil it."

"Do you think this girl's tale can be true?" asked Lord Stanton. "I know my sister Bernard for a hard, stern woman, who would have been my last choice for a guardian; but this seems beyond belief."

"Her cousin, Sir James Warden, doubtless acted for the best," said Dr. Burgess. "Mrs. Bernard has ever been counted an honourable woman, though somewhat stern and severe, especially with children. I have often pitied Lady Lucy, and would willingly have made her acquaintance, that she might amuse herself with companions of her own age; but her aunt has repelled all our advances. It may be that my good wife and myself have erred is the opposite direction, and allowed too much liberty to our young flock. I know that Mrs. Bernard is of that opinion,—which probably is one reason that she will not allow Lady Lucy to play with my girls, but I cannot think children spoiled who mind their mother with a word or look, and come to their parents with all their little secrets and confessions as freely as our young ones."

"Truly I should say not," returned Lord Stanton. "But I am impatient to see my poor little daughter. May I so far trespass upon your kindness as to ask Mrs. Burgess to take charge of her for a day or two till I can make arrangements for keeping her at home?"

"Surely, surely, my lord,—if she can live as we do. I will mention the matter to my wife."

Poor Lucy, on her hard bed, had fallen into an uneasy slumber, while her bread and water stood almost untouched upon the table. The three days of confinement and harsh treatment had made a great change in her appearance. She was thinner and paler, with dark purple marks under her eyes; and the scarlet traces of the blows she had received still showed plainly upon her thin white neck and arms. She had seen from the window her aunt go out for a walk, as usual, in the cool of the day, and had waited, watching and hoping that Anne or Margery would find a chance to speak to her through the key-hole, if no more. But no one came, and she had cried herself to sleep.

She was suddenly awakened by the sound of several voices upon the stairs. She distinguished Anne's, and then Hannah's, and then a stern, manly voice, which said,—

"If you do not open the door without delay, I will break it in. I will not be kept from my child."

Then the door was unlocked, and she saw Anne and Margery, Hannah, looking frightened and angry, and a tall, richly-dressed gentleman, whom she seemed directly to remember, and who caught her in his arms, calling her his darling, his poor, motherless, abused child.

"Are you really my father,—my own father who was dead?" she asked, at last, and leaning back to look at him.

"I am your own father, child, counted dead for so many years."

"And is mamma come alive again too?"

Lucy felt herself drawn into a closer embrace as her father whispered,—

"No, dear child: your precious mother cannot come again; but we shall go to her."

"And will you take me away and let me live with you?" asked Lucy. "Oh, papa, I will try to be so very good, if you will!"

"Yes, Lucy: you shall go with me this very night. Mistress Burgess will receive you."

"The child must not be removed till my mistress returns," said Hannah, tartly. "Her guardian put her in my mistress's care; and to him she is answerable,—not to a stranger."

Lord Stanton rose.

"She shall be removed without one moment's delay," said he, firmly. "I am her father. Let some one—you, my girl—" as he saw Anne—"bring something in which to wrap her. I will answer to my sister for what I do. Whether she can answer to me, is another matter."

Mrs. Bernard, returning from her walk, saw the servants and horses standing at Dr. Burgess's door; but she thought nothing of it, except to wonder what grand visitor had come to the parson's. Her meditations had not been very pleasant. She was beginning to get over her fit of anger, and to listen to two counsellors,—conscience and interest; and from neither of them did she obtain a great deal of comfort.

Conscience told her that she had given way to passion; that she had been harsh and cruel to a helpless child; that she had failed in her trust, and had roused, in the usually timid and yielding girl, pride and obstinacy equal to her own.

Interest told her that she had made an enemy of Lucy; that she had failed to win the child's affection or confidence; that she had no hold upon her but sheer physical force. Sir James Warden, Lucy's cousin and guardian, might see fit to remove her at any time; and no doubt Lucy would look upon change as for the better. The child herself would be no great loss; but with her would go the three hundred pounds a year allowed for her guardianship, and with that the carriage, the extra servants, perhaps the very house in which she lived and which belonged to the Stanton-Corbet estate.

She had no claim upon the property save what grew out of her care of Lucy. She was the daughter of Lord Stanton's step-mother, and had been brought up with him: that was all the relationship. It would have been the part of wisdom, interest told her, to have acquired such a hold upon the little girl's regards as would have given her a lifelong influence over the young heiress. Instead of that, she had allowed her hatred of her step-brother's foreign wife to cause her to tyrannize over his daughter.

Lucy had never loved her, and she had long since lost even the slight hold upon her respect which she had once possessed. It was probably too late to mend matters now, even if her pride would have allowed her to stoop to a child; but Mrs. Bernard resolved that Lucy should be forgiven and released as if she had actually begged pardon, and that henceforth she would allow her more liberty.

In this frame of mind she came home, to be met by the news that Lucy's father had returned and carried her away, leaving a note to explain his proceedings. What this note contained no one ever knew.

Mrs. Bernard read it and crushed it up in her hand without any remark. Then she bade Hannah pack Lady Lucy's clothes and other possessions and send them to the parsonage. She had all but idolized her step-brother, and had shed many tears for his loss; but she took no steps to see him, nor did she ever again mention his name. She continued for many years living in the same house, seeing no company, never going out even to church, and refusing to speak to any member of Dr. Burgess's family if by any chance she met them.

She had indulged pride and self-will till they had become absorbing passions over which she exerted no control. Some time after, Lady Lucy made more than one effort to see and conciliate her aunt; but Mrs. Bernard sternly repelled all her advances, and lived and died alone.

Meantime, Lady Lucy was most warmly received at the parsonage, installed in the best room, and treated with all the care and kindness which Mrs. Burgess and her daughters had to bestow, till her father came to carry her home to Stanton Court, where he had engaged an elderly lady—a cousin of his mother—to take care of her. Lord Stanton stayed a few days with Lucy, and then went abroad once more, leaving his daughter to the care of Cousin Deborah Corbet.