Brooke's Daughter: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"Dear Ethel, how can you ask such a thing? When you know how fond I am of Lesley."

"Are you?" asked Miss Kenyon lightly. "Do you know I should never have thought it, somehow. I am exceedingly fond of Lesley, and so"—with a little more color in her face than usual—"so is Oliver."

Bravely as she spoke, there was something in the accent which told of effort and repression. Mrs. Romaine admired her for that little piece of acting more than she had ever admired her upon the stage. She was too anxious for her brother's prosperity to say a word to disturb Ethel's serenity, whether it was real or assumed.

"I am so glad, dear," she said, sweetly. "Lesley is a dear girl, and thoroughly good and loving. I am quite sure you could not have a better friend, and she will be delighted to do anything she can for you."

"I don't know about that," said Ethel, with a little pout. "I had a great deal of trouble to get her to promise to come. She made all sorts of excuses—one would have thought that she did not want to see me married at all."

Which, Rosalind thought, might be very true. She had so strong a faith in the power of her brother's fascinations that she could not believe that he had actually "made love," as he had threatened, to Lesley Brooke without success.

Ethel spoke truly when she said that she had had great difficulty in persuading Lesley to come. After what had passed between herself and Oliver, Lesley felt herself a traitress in Ethel's presence. It seemed to her at first impossible to talk to Ethel about her pretty wedding gifts, her trousseau and her wedding tour, or to listen while she swore fidelity to Oliver Trent, when she knew what she did know concerning the bridegroom's faith and honor. On the Sunday after the Brookes' evening party she had a very severe headache, and sent word to Ethel that she could not possibly come to her on the morrow. But Ethel immediately came over to see her, and poured forth questions, consolations, and laments in such profusion that Lesley, half blind and dazed, was fain to get rid of her by promising again that nothing should keep her away. And on Monday the headache had gone, and she had no excuse. It was not in Lesley's nature to simulate: she could not pretend that she had an illness when she was perfectly well. There was absolutely no reason that she could give either to the Kenyons or to Miss Brooke for not keeping her promise to sleep at Ethel's house on the Monday night, and be present at her wedding on Tuesday morning.

So she wound herself up to make the best it. It seemed to her that no girl had ever been placed in so painful a position before. We, who have more experience of life than Lesley had, know better than that. Lesley's position was painful indeed, but it might in many ways have been worse. But she, ignorant of real life, more ignorant even than most girls, because she knew so few of the pictures of real life that are to be found in the best kind of novels, had nothing but her native instincts of truth and courage to fall back upon, together with the strong will and power of judgment that she inherited from her father. These qualities, however, stood her in good stead that day. "It is no use to be weak," she said to herself. "What good shall I do to Ethel if I give her cause to suspect Oliver Trent's truth to her? The only question is—ought I to tell her—to put her on her guard? Oh, I think not—I hope not. If he marries her, he cannot help loving her; and it would break her heart—now—if I told her that he was not faithful. I must be brave and go to her, and be as sympathetic as usual—take pleasure in her pleasure, and try to forget the past! but I wish she were going to marry a man that one could trust, like my father, or like—Maurice."

She always called him Maurice when she thought about him now.

It took all the strength that she possessed, however, to go through the ordeal of those hours with Ethel. She managed to keep away until nearly nine o'clock on Monday night, and then—just after her father had gone out—she received a peremptory little note from Ethel. "Why don't you come? You said you would come almost directly after dinner, and it is ever so late now. Oliver has just left me: he has business in the city, so I shall not see him again until to-morrow. Do come at once, or I shall begin to feel lonely."