A Canadian Heroine, Volume 3 / A Novel

by Mrs. Harry Coghill

CHAPTER VII.

Before going to bed on the very night of his arrival, Maurice found the list of steamers, and with his father's approbation fixed upon one which was advertised to sail in a few days over a fortnight from that time. It happened to be a vessel the comfortable accommodation of which had been specially praised by some experienced travellers, his fellow-passengers in the 'India,' and the advantages of going by it being quite evident, served to satisfy what small scruples of conscience Mr. Bellairs had been able to awaken. He wrote, therefore, to secure berths and put his letter ready to be taken into Cacouna next morning, when he should go to pay his promised visit to Mrs. Bellairs.

It was early when Maurice awoke; he did so with a sense of having much to do, but the aspect of his own old room, so strange now and yet so familiar, kept him dreaming for a few minutes before that important day's work could be begun. How bare and angular it seemed, how shabby and poor the furniture! It never had been anything but a boy's room of the simplest sort, and yet it had many happy and some few sad associations, such as no other room could ever have for him. He recalled the long ago days when his brother and he had shared it together, and their mother used to come in softly at night to look that her two sons were safe and well,—the later years, when mother and brother were both gone, and he himself sat there alone reading or writing far into the night. He thought of the many summer mornings when he had opened his window to watch for the movement of Lucia's curtain, or for the glimpse of her girlish figure moving about under the light shadows of the acacias in the Cottage garden.

But when he came to that point in his meditation, he sprang up impatiently, and the uncomfortable irritating feeling that he had been unfairly dealt with, tricked, in fact, began to take possession of him again. However, it only acted as a stimulant. He began to feel that he had entered into the lists with Mrs. Costello, and, regarding her as a faithless ally, was not a little disposed to do battle with her à l'outrance, and carry off Lucia for revenge as well as for love.

Directly after breakfast he had out the little red sleigh in which last winter he had so often driven his old playfellow to and from Cacouna, and started alone. He had many visits of friendship or business to pay, but he could not resist going first to Mrs. Bellairs.

After all, now that the first sharpness of his disappointment was over, it was pleasant to be at home and to meet friendly faces at every turn. He had to stop again and again to exchange greetings with people on the road, and even sometimes to receive congratulations on being a "rich man now," "a lucky fellow"—congratulations which were both spoken and listened to as much as if the lands of Hunsdon were a fairy penny, in the virtues of which neither speaker nor hearer had any very serious belief. In fact, there was something odd and incredible in the idea that this was no longer plain Maurice Leigh, the most popular and one of the poorest members of this small Backwoods world, but Maurice Leigh Beresford, of Hunsdon, an English country gentleman rich enough, if he chose, to buy up the whole settlement.

Maurice went on his way, however, little troubled by his new dignity, and found Mrs. Bellairs and Bella expecting him. They had guessed that he would not delay coming for the promised address, and Mr. Strafford's note containing it lay ready on the table; but when he came into the room their visitor did actually for the moment forget his errand in seeing the sombre black-robed figure which had taken the place of the gay Bella Latour. He had gone away just before her wedding, he had left her happy, bright, mischievous,—a girl whom sorrow had never touched, who seemed incapable of understanding what trouble meant; he came back, full of his own perplexities and disappointments, and found her one so seized upon by grief that it had grown into her nature, and clothed and crowned her with its sad pre-eminence. There was no ostentation of mourning about the young widow, it is true, but none the less Maurice in looking at her first forgot himself utterly, and then remembered his impatience and ill-humour with more shame than was at all agreeable.

To Bella also the meeting was a painful one. Of all her friends, Maurice was the only one who was associated with her girlish happiness, and quite dissociated from her married life and its tragic ending. The sight of him, therefore, renewed for the moment the recollections which she had taught herself to keep as much as possible for her solitary hours, and almost disturbed the calm she had forced upon herself in the presence of others.

Mrs. Bellairs, however, used to her sister's calamity and ignorant of Maurice's feelings, did not long delay referring to the Costellos.

"Here is Mr. Strafford's note," she said. "I wrote and begged of him to tell me by what means a letter would be likely to reach them, and this is his answer."