CHAPTER III.
AN ARRIVAL AT MOOSHANNE.—A CALM ASHORE AFTER A STORM AT SEA.
While the events, narrated in the preceding chapter, were occurring in the Western wilderness, the family at Mooshanne had been thrown into a state of the greatest dismay and confusion, by the arrival of Captain L’Estrange’s first letter announcing the flight of Ethelston with his daughter, and depicting his conduct in the blackest colours. Colonel Brandon had perused its contents half a dozen times, and they had produced traces of anxiety upon his countenance, too evident to escape the observation of Lucy, so that he was obliged to break to her by degrees the painful intelligence of her lover’s infidelity: with a calmness that surprised him, she insisted on reading the letter; as she proceeded her brow crimsoned with indignation, and those blue eyes, usually beaming with the gentlest expression, flashed with an angry lustre.
Colonel Brandon knew full well the affection she had long conceived for Ethelston, and though his own feelings were deeply wounded by the misconduct of one whom he had loved and trusted as a son, they were at present overpowered by the fears which he entertained of the effect which this unexpected blow might produce on Lucy’s health and happiness. He was, therefore, relieved by observing the anger expressed on her countenance, and prepared himself to hear the deserved reproaches on her former lover, which seemed ready to burst from her tongue. What was his surprise when he saw her tear the letter in pieces before his face, and heard her, while she set her pretty little foot upon them, exclaim,
“Dear, dear father, how could you for a moment believe such a tale of vile, atrocious falsehood?”
However disinclined the Colonel might be to believe any thing to the disadvantage of Ethelston, there was so much circumstantial evidence to condemn him, that he felt it his duty to prepare his child for the worst at once, and to point out to her how they already knew that Ethelston had been wounded and conveyed to the house of L’Estrange, that his long absence was unexplained, and lastly that the character of the French commodore, as an officer, and a man of honour, was unimpeached.
Lucy heard him to the end; the glow on her cheek assumed a warmer hue, and the little foot beat with a nervous and scarcely perceptible motion on the floor, as she replied, “Father I will believe that the letter is a forgery, or that the French officer, or commodore, or admiral, is a madman, but never that Ethelston is a villain.”
“My dear Lucy,” said the Colonel, “I am almost as unwilling to think ill of Ethelston as you can be yourself; but alas! I have seen more than you of the inconstancy of men; and I know, too well, that many who have enjoyed a good reputation have yet been found unable to withstand temptation, such as may have beset Ethelston while an inmate of the same house with the Creole beauty—“