A Canadian Heroine. Mrs. Harry Coghill
they had yet a few last words to say.
"What will mamma say?" Lucia half whispered. "I am almost afraid to see her."
"Will you tell her or shall I? Which shall you like best? I will come in the morning."
"I shall not sleep to-night if she does not know. I suppose I must tell her, if you will not come in now."
"Not now. I must arrange my thoughts a little first. After all, Lucia, you don't know how little I have to offer you."
"What does that matter?" she asked simply. "Mamma will not care—nor I."
"You will not, of course. You would be content to live like a bird, on next to nothing; but then you know nothing of the world."
"No, indeed. I am nothing better than a baby."
"You are a million times better than any other woman, and will make the best and dearest of wives—if you had only a luckier fellow for a husband."
"Are you unlucky, really? Are you very poor?"
"Poor enough for a hermit. My father is not much richer; and as I have the good fortune to be a younger son, the little he has will go to George, my elder brother, not to me."
Lucia was silent a moment, thinking.
"Are you frightened?" he asked her. "You did not know things were quite so bad?"
"I am not frightened," she answered. "But I was considering. Mamma has some money; she would give me what she could, but I am not like Bella, you know. I have not any fortune at all."
Mr. Percy laughed, "Do not puzzle yourself over such difficulties to-night, at any rate. Leave me to think of those. I will tell you what you must do. Make up your mind to be as charming as possible when you see my father, and fascinate him in spite of himself; for, I assure you he will not very readily forgive us for deranging his plans. Good-night now, I shall be here early to-morrow."
He went away up the lane, while she lingered yet for a moment, looking after him, trying to understand clearly what had happened—to realize this wonderful happiness which was yet only like a dream. How could she go out of the soft summer darkness into the bright light of the parlour and its every day associations? But as she retraced every word and look of the past hour, she came back at last to the horrible recollection of the Indian who had alarmed her. That hideous besotted face seemed to stare at her again through the obscurity, and, trembling with fright, she hurried through the garden and up the verandah steps.
Mrs. Costello was sitting at work by the table where the light fell brightly, but Lucia was glad that the lamp-shade threw most of the room into comparative darkness. Even as it was, she came with shy lingering steps to her mother's side, and was in no hurry to answer her question, "Where have you been loitering so long?"
"I have been at the gate some time," she said. "It is so pleasant out of doors."
"I went to the top of the lane to look for you a long time ago, and saw you coming with, I thought, Mr. Percy."
"Yes. He met me. Mamma, I want to tell you something about—"
Mrs. Costello laid down her work.
"What?" she said almost sharply, as something in her child's soft caressing attitude, and broken words struck her with a new terror.
Lucia slid down to the floor, half kneeling at her mother's feet. "About myself—and him," she murmured.
Mrs. Costello raised her daughter's face to the light, and looked at it closely with an almost bitter scrutiny.
"Child," she said, "I thought you would have been safe from this. I did him injustice, it seems."
A new instinct in Lucia's mind roused her against her mother. She let her clinging arms fall, and raised her head.
"I do not understand you, mother," she answered, and half rose from where she had been kneeling.
"Stay, Lucia," and her mother's hand detained her. "I have tried to save you from suffering. I see now that I have been wrong. But tell me all."
Awed and startled out of the sweet dreams of a few minutes ago, Lucia tried to obey. She said a few almost unintelligible words, then came to a sudden pause. She had slipped back again to her old place after her little burst of anger, and now looked up pleadingly to her mother.
"But, indeed, I don't know how it was," she said; "only it was after the Indian went away."
Mrs. Costello started. "What Indian?" she asked.
And then the story came out, vivid enough, but broken up as it were by the newer, sweeter excitement of that other story which she could only tell in broken words and blushes. As she spoke her eyes were still raised to her mother's face, looking only for the reflection of her own terror and thankfulness; but she saw such deadly paleness and rigidity steal over it, that she started up in dismay.
Mrs. Costello signed to her to wait, and in a moment was again so far mistress of herself as to be able to say,
"Sit down again. Finish your story, and then describe this man if you can."
Her voice was forced and husky, but Lucia dared not disobey. She had only a few words to add, but her description had nothing characteristic in it, except the utterly degraded and brutal expression of the countenance, which had so vividly impressed her.
When she ceased speaking, both remained for some minutes silent and without moving. Then Mrs. Costello rose, and began to walk slowly up and down the room. She felt that she had made a mistake in the affair nearest to her heart. She knew that Lucia had a girl's fancy for Mr. Percy; he had done all he could to awaken it, and it was not likely that the poor child would have been entirely untouched by his efforts; but she had believed that it was only for the amusement of his leisure that he had been so perseveringly blind to her own coldness, and that he was too thoroughly selfish to be guilty of such an imprudence as she now saw had been committed. That Lucia could ever be his wife, she knew was utterly impossible. She had thought that the worst which could happen, was that when he had left Cacouna his memory would have to be slowly and painfully eradicated from her heart, but now it had become needful to cause this beloved child a double share of the trouble, which she had so dreaded for her. All these thoughts, and with them the idea of an added horror overhanging herself, seemed to press upon her brain with unendurable weight. Yet, suffer as she might, time must not be suffered to pass. Night was advancing, and before morning Lucia must know all the story, which once told, would shadow her life, and throw her new-born happiness out of her very recollection.
She stopped at last in her restless walk. She went up to the chair where Lucia sat, and putting her arms round her, kissed her forehead.
"You are very happy, my child?" she said tenderly.
"Mamma, I don't know. I was happy."
"You will be again—not yet, but later. Try to believe that, for it is time you should share my secret and my burden, and they are terrible for you now."
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