My curiosity was excited, for I had never heard my mother speak like that before, and so I settled myself to listen, and to enjoy what she had to say.
"My childhood was a very wretched one, Cora," she began. "For that reason I have spoken little of it to you, but endeavoured, assisted by your father, to make yours the very opposite to it as far as lay in my power, and that I could do so is due, I may say wholly, to your Uncle Tone, who taught me to be happy myself, and to endeavour to make others so."
I slipped my hand into my dear mother's; she was the best, most loving, and wisest mother that ever lived.
"My mother died when I was born," she continued, "and my father took his loss so to heart that he shut himself off from all society, grew silent and morose, and," she added after some hesitation, "became in time a drunkard."
She brought these words out with such an effort, such difficulty, that the tears came to my eyes, and I whispered, "Don't go on, mother darling, if it hurts you." She continued, however, without appearing to notice my interruption.
"I ran wild till I was twelve or thirteen years of age, I had no society but my father's and the servants', and I got no regular education. He would not send me to school, but the vicar's daughter came over for an hour or two every day to teach me what I could be induced to learn, which was little enough. I was hot-tempered, headstrong, self-willed, accustomed to fight for what I wanted, getting nothing by any other means, and doing without what I could not get in that way. No softening, no refining influence came into my life. My one pleasure even then was music. I had a passion for it. Miss Vincent, the vicar's daughter, taught me to play the piano, and I used to spend hours in the deserted drawing-room, playing what I knew, and picking out tunes by myself, while my father was shut up in his study. We had no near relation, no one who cared enough to take pity on an unruly, troublesome, little girl, with a drunken father. When I was between twelve and thirteen he died, and a godmother who lived in Scotland took charge of me, and sent me to a boarding-school, at which I spent the next four years. Schools were not then what they are now, particularly in Scotland, and between the time spent there and the holidays with Miss Clark, who was a stern, old maid and a confirmed invalid, my life was very dreary; I was becoming harder, and harder. I did not know in fact that I had any feelings; they were not cultivated amongst the people who had to do with me. She, also, died before I was seventeen, and then something happened which was to change my whole life. My step-brother, whom I had never seen, wrote to Miss McDougall, with whom I was at school, saying that my home would, henceforth, be with him. Your Uncle Tone was my father's son by his first marriage, and when his father married my mother, Tone went to live with his maternal grandfather, who, on his death, left him the beautiful place in Derbyshire to which I was to go. He lived there with an old aunt. This news affected me very little; I had never had a happy home, a real home; I did not know what that was, but I presumed I should go somewhere on leaving school.
"My love of music had, in the meantime, increased. I had had a very good master, a real musician, and I had worked hard for him. To me it was a delight, but I never thought nor cared that it could give pleasure to any one else. I used to shut myself up for hours in the holidays, out of hearing of my godmother, who seldom left her room, and play, and play, till my arms ached.
"I remember well the day he came for me. I was ready, waiting, when the maid brought me the message that Sir Tone Wolsten was in the drawing-room. He was standing on the hearth-rug talking to Miss McDougall, and looked so tall to me. He is over six feet. I can see him now as he stood there, erect, broad-shouldered, with bright chestnut hair, clear, keen, dark blue eyes, and bronzed skin, a strong, kind, fearless face. He looked a thorough man, one to be trusted. He greeted me very kindly as his little sister, and took me home with him. Goldmead Park was the loveliest place I had ever seen. His Aunt Evangeline, whom I also called 'aunt,' was a frail, querulous old lady, whom he treated as his mother. He did not marry till after her death, five years later. I was planted in entirely new surroundings, with everything pleasant about me, everything that I could desire, or ought to have desired. Your uncle was kindness itself. He taught me to ride and to drive, supplied me with books, took the greatest interest in me; but the restrictions of every well-ordered home which would have been nothing to a properly trained girl were unendurable to me. I resisted from sheer perverseness and dislike of control. I do not mean to say that I was always ill-tempered; I was lively and merry enough, and your uncle used to tease me, and jest with me, which I enjoyed very much, and responded to willingly.
"Some weeks had passed like this, my step-brother being most kind and indulgent. Frequently Aunt Evangeline had asked me to play to them in the evening after dinner, but I had refused obstinately. I liked to play to myself, but I had never been accustomed to do so before any one, and it never entered my head that it could give them pleasure, or that I was bound to do it out of politeness. At last she became more irritable and frequently made sarcastic remarks about the young people of the present day. This happened again one evening, and I answered sharply, not to say rudely.
"The next morning I wandered through the woods belonging to the park, gathering violets, and had sat down, hot and tired, under a lovely chestnut, with my lap full of flowers which I was arranging and tying up in bunches in order to carry them home more easily. I heard footsteps, which I recognised by their briskness and firmness, and looking up I saw my brother approach, walking, as usual, erect, with his head well thrown back but with stern lines in his face which I had not seen there before. I looked up smiling, expecting his usual kind greeting, but instead of that he strode straight up and stopped in front of me.