Brooke's Daughter: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

"Take care of Lesley! As if she wanted taking care of!" said Miss Brooke, with sudden energy. "Sarah, go over at once to Mr. Kenyon's, and tell Miss Lesley to come home. She can't stay there while this is going on. It isn't decent."

Sarah was rather glad to execute this order. She was of opinion that Miss Lesley needed to be taken down a bit, and that this was the way in which the Lord saw fit to do it. And it never occurred to Miss Brooke to caution the woman against startling Lesley or hurting her feelings. She had been startled certainly, and almost overcome; but she belonged to that class of middle-aged women who think that their emotions must necessarily be stronger than those of young people, because they are older and understand what sorrow means, whereas the reverse is usually the case. Besides, Miss Brooke quite underrated the warmth of Lesley's attachment to her father, and was not prepared to see her experience anything but shallow and commonplace regret.

So Sarah went to the house opposite and knocked at the door. She had to knock twice before the door was opened, for the whole household was out of joint. The maids were desperately clearing away all signs of festivity—flowers, wedding-cake, the charming little breakfast that had been prepared for the guests—everything that told of wedding preparation, and had now such a ghastly look. Under Mrs. Durant's direction the servants were endeavoring to restore to the rooms their wonted appearance. Ethel's trunks had been piled into an empty room: she would not want her trousseau now, poor child. The uncle from the country was pacing up and down the deserted drawing-room; the aunt was fussing about Ethel's dressing-room, nervously folding up articles of clothing and putting away trifles. All the blinds were down, as if for a funeral. And in Ethel's own room, the girl lay on her bed, white and rigid as a corpse, with half-shut eyes that did not seem to see, and fingers so tightly closed that the nails almost ran into her soft palms. Since she had been laid there she had not spoken; no one could quite tell whether she were conscious or not; but Lesley, who sat beside her, and sometimes laid her cheek softly against the desolate young bride's cold face, or kissed the ashen-grey lips, divined by instinct that she was not unconscious although stunned by the force of the blow—that she was thinking, thinking, thinking all the time—thinking of her lost lover, of her lost happiness, and beating herself passionately against the wall of darkness which had arisen between her and the future that she had planned for herself and Oliver.

Sarah asked at once for Miss Lesley Brooke, and Mrs. Durant came out of the dining-room to speak to the messenger.

"Is Miss Brooke wanted very particularly?" she asked. "Miss Kenyon will not have anyone else with her."

"I think I must speak to Miss Lesley, ma'am; my mistress said I must," said Sarah, primly. Then, forgetting her loyalty to her employers in her desire to be communicative, she went on—"Maybe you haven't heard what's happened, ma'am. Mr. Brooke's been taken up on the charge of murder——"

This was not strictly true, but it was the way in which Sarah read the facts.

"And Miss Brooke says Miss Lesley must come home, as it is not proper for her to stay."

The horror depicted on Mrs. Durant's face was quite as great as Sarah had anticipated, and even more so. For Mrs. Durant, a conventional and narrow-minded woman, did not know enough of Caspar Brooke's character to feel any indignation at the accusation: indeed, she was the sort of woman who was likely to put a vulgar construction upon his motives, and regard it as probable that he had quarreled with Oliver for not wishing to marry Lesley instead of Ethel Kenyon. And she at once grasped the situation. Under the circumstances—if Caspar Brooke had killed Ethel's lover—it was most improper that Caspar Brooke's daughter should be staying in the house.

"Of course!" she said, with a shocked face. "Miss Lesley Brooke must go at once—naturally. How very terrible! I am much obliged to Miss Brooke for sending—as Ethel's chaperon I couldn't undertake——I'll go upstairs and send her down to you."