A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette. Charlotte M. Brame
especially that golden-haired mystery who had brought him safety. He hurried home, longing to be at work again. He felt energy for everything. Never had there been such a fair day, never such a lovely home, never such beautiful fields, standing thick to the sickle. Heaven be praised, he was his own man again!
He met his laborers coming to the work. In answer to his questions, one said that, crossing a field after dark, he had met a tall woman, in black, veiled, carrying a bundle which, at the time, he fancied might be a child. Another, returning late from the Blue Boar, had passed a tall woman, in black, veiled, hurrying on, with empty arms swinging at her side, but heard her sob and moan as she went by.
This was all Mark Brace heard about that eventful night.
The neighbors, finding a golden-haired, dainty babe in Patty Brace's cradle, said, wisely:
"No doubt she was well paid." "Mark Brace had seemed flush of money of late." "It was well to have friends. The child very surely belonged to some great lady."
But whether its mother lived or was dead, or where she was, Patty never opened her lips to tell; and, after two months, gossip died away, and the baby at Brackenside Farm was an accepted fact.
One person asked questions with more show of authority, and to him Mark and Patty told part of the truth. This one person was the Rector of Brakebury. They told him that the child had been left at their door, with a letter and a sum of money. The letter said the child was legitimate and christened, and that the hundred pounds would come each year. The rector was so astonished at this story that he told it to his bishop when he dined with him.
"And what kind of a child is it?" asked the Bishop of Lansdown.
"The most marvelously beautiful creature; fairly angelic."
A few weeks later, in November, the bishop was dining with the Duke of Downsbury, and bethought himself to tell the tale, beginning:
"Does not the village of Brakebury belong entirely to your grace? and is not Mark Brace one of your tenant farmers?"
The bishop told the story, as he told every story, admirably.
"And they have no clew to the child's family," asked the duchess.
"Not the least. It was the most cleverly-managed thing I ever heard of in my life."
When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, Lady Estelle Hereford, the duke's only child, asked her mother:
"What was that story the bishop was telling?"
Lady Estelle was not nineteen. Her mother felt that this tale of a foundling was not a proper thing to pour into the ear of innocence.
"Really, my dear, I was shocked at the bishop's speaking of such a thing before you," said her Grace of Downsbury.
"Why, mamma, there may be nothing really wrong about it after all," said Lady Estelle, quietly, and the duchess privately thanked Heaven for her daughter's simplicity.
"There is always some wrong where there is concealment," said the duchess, with decision. "Honor does not shun the day. I prefer you do not talk of it, Estelle."
"But, dear mamma, I want to know. So little happens here in the country, I hoped it was something to interest me."
"No, my dear. Only a little child, left at Mark Brace's door – with some money – and I think that is all, my dear."
"And Mark Brace is going to keep the child, mamma?"
"So I understand. Very admirable, honest people, the Braces."
"It is just like a novel, mamma – nicer than a written one. I am sick of novels, as I am sick of everything. I would like to see that child, if it is so pretty, mamma."
"My dearest love! But Brackenside is fifteen miles off, and you could not go so far in this chill autumn weather. You know the doctor says you must get to Italy at once."
Lady Estelle leaned back as one completely bored and weary of life, and toyed with her fan and flowers. A beauty, an heiress, a duke's daughter, Lady Estelle had been for a year and a half the idol of the most fashionable circle in London. Proud, stately, cold, calm, with sudden gleams of tenderness and fire in her great violet eyes, she had been courted by some of the noblest men of England, and dismissed each with the same indifference. But the excitement of gay life, or a nervous shock received in traveling with her friend, Lady Agnes Delapain, in Switzerland, had stolen the wild-rose tint from her cheek and the elasticity from her graceful step, and baffled physicians ordered her to be taken to a warmer climate.
"I am sorry to lose you again, Lady Hereford," said the bishop, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room.
"Thank you. But I am rather glad to go. I may find in Italy something to amuse me, or wake my cold, calm soul to romance. Here, it seems to me, it is very dull. Only the little incident that you told to-day rises over the prosaic."
Lady Estelle, with a swift glance, assured herself that the duchess was at the most remote corner of the room.
"Ah, yes, that has a flavor of romance," said the bishop.
"And you say the child is healthy and pretty?"
"Both, I am told, to an unusual degree. It has the fatal gift of beauty."
"Why fatal?" asked Lady Estelle, with listless politeness.
"Not fatal to those born to rank, parents, and every care, but fatal to the poor, the unprotected, the unknown. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."
"I never thought of that," said Lady Estelle, and then her brief interest in the little child seemed to pass into the gentle indifference with which she regarded all the events of life.
For hours afterward Lady Estelle Hereford thought of the fair foundling that had been left at Brackenside Farm, and an uneasy feeling came over her as she reflected upon the bishop's words:
"The child possesses the fatal gift of beauty. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."
CHAPTER IV
THE MARBLE PSYCHE
Mark Brace was the tenant of the Duke of Downsbury, as his fathers before him had for many generations been the tenants of the duke's ancestors; yet no two lines of life seemed to run farther apart than those of the duke and the farmer. The duke respected and appreciated his tenant, and the tenant sturdily held loyal faith in his duke, as the noblest duke in England.
Yet, when Downsbury Castle was shut up, and all the family were abroad, seeking, year by year, health for the patrician daughter, that absence of the noble patron made no change in the current of life at the farm. Patty and Mark, when the duke came to their minds, hoped he would find for his only child the health he sought.
"How we should feel if our Mattie was delicate!" said Patty.
"What a pity it is," said Mark, "that the duke has no son. He has hoped and hoped, but now he knows he will be the last Duke of Downsbury."
"But Lady Estelle will get strong, perhaps, and marry, and he will have great comfort in his grandchildren," said Patty.
Meanwhile, at Brackenside Farm, little Doris grew every day in beauty and brightness. Never was such a winsome wee thing. Patty felt sure the saucy blue eyes would count many victims when Doris bloomed into girlhood's beauty. Patty was tender of her charge, as of some strange tropic bird that had fluttered into her homely nest. Mattie, with her frank simplicity, adored, waited on, yielded to, her "little sister." Honest Mark fell a complete slave to the fascinations of her beauty: he could not give a severe look, nor a reproving word: the twining of those dimpled arms around his neck brought instant submission to any whim of Miss Doris.
"Mark, Mark, you are like all the men – you think the world and all of a pretty face," said Patty, laughing.
"She's just a wonder, and I can't cross her," said Mark. "Not but I like Mattie best. You can rely on Mattie, somehow: she's worth twenty of this pretty Doris; but I can say 'no' to her, and I can try to train her up to be a good woman; but this little golden and pearly thing is just like a butterfly or a humming-bird to me, that's a fact. And then, Patty, we have