MAUD HARCOURT.
Mistress Mabel, with all her sternness, had some difficulty in parrying the children's questions about Harry, when they assembled in the keeping room the morning of his departure. Mary, too, felt anxious about her brother; but she dared not question her aunt as the children did; and from her answers to them little could be gathered beyond this, that Harry had disgraced himself through making unworthy friendships, and the children at once jumped to the conclusion that it was Gilbert Clayton to whom their aunt referred. Mary, however, indignantly repelled this insinuation. She had had several conversations with Clayton, and had learned to esteem him very highly, so that how Harry could have disgraced himself while with him, or what the wild words he had uttered the previous evening fully meant, she could not tell.
At dinner time Maud came down looking very pale but quite calm, until Master Drury, noticing that Harry's chair had been placed at the table as usual, ordered it to be carried away without mentioning his name, and said, "That seat will not be wanted again." Then Maud trembled with agitation, and Bertram asked quickly, "Where has brother Harry gone?"
"My boy, you have no brother," said Master Drury, coldly.
"Oh, Harry's dead!" screamed Bessie, pushing aside her pewter plate, and laying her head on the table in a burst of uncontrollable anguish.
Maud, however, knew that he was not dead, but without noticing Bessie's distress or Mary's look of mute agony, she rose from her seat, and walking round to the side of Master Drury, she said, "You will tell me where Harry has gone."
It was a demand rather than a question, and Mistress Mabel, as well as her brother, opened her eyes wide with astonishment on hearing it. "He has disgraced himself and all who bear his name," said the lady, quickly.
"Prithee, Maud, go and sit down," said Master Drury, tenderly.
But Maud shook her head. "You will tell me where Harry is, first," she said, still in the same quiet tone of command.
"I know not, unless he be travelling towards London with his false friend, who has turned his head with his stories of the traitor Parliament. He hath done this much; he confessed it to me this morning ere they departed," added Master Drury.
He thought this would satisfy Maud, and all questioning would be at an end now, but the young lady asked, "What did you mean, Master Drury, by saying Bertram had no brother now?"
Mistress Mabel looked horrified at the impertinence of the question, but Maud stood still and waited for an answer.
Calming his emotion with a violent effort, he turned to Maud and said, "By my faith, you should be thankful this day that you are not a Drury, to be disgraced by this traitor caitiff, who was my son. This must be the last time he is ever spoken of in this house, for I have renounced him—cast him off for ever; and you children must do the same," he said, turning towards Bertram and Bessie.
The little girl had dried her tears, and both sat with white frightened faces gazing at Maud and their father.
Maud staggered back to her seat and bowed her face in her hands, and the dinner went on in silence among those who cared to eat. Maud and Mary sat with their plates before them, but left the table without tasting anything, and as soon as they could escape went up to their own room.
Here Maud's firmness quite forsook her, and laying her head on Mary's shoulder, she burst into tears, moaning, "Oh, Mary, what shall I do? I cast him off as well."
Mary could not understand her. "I think you ought to be very glad you are not a Drury, to share in his disgrace," she said, with a sigh.
Maud lifted her face, her eyes flashing with indignation. "Glad!" she said; "nay, nay, I wish I were a Drury, that I might go and seek him now. Think of it, Mary; all have cast him off."
"He has disgraced us all," said Mary. "I have heard my father say it was his proudest boast that the Drurys had ever been true to the king and state, and never taken part with any riotous mob, and now Harry has dragged our family honour to the very dust. Everybody will know it soon, and every village wench will pity me because I am the sister of a traitor. I shall never hold up my head again," and Mary burst into tears at the picture of humiliation she had drawn.
