“Then the letter is true?” burst out Ethel. “You know it is true, grandmamma, and that is why you would have me keep it a secret from my cousin; besides,” she added, with a little hesitation, “your caution comes too late, Lord Kew has seen the letter.”
“You fool!” screamed the old lady, “you were not so mad as to show it to him?”
“I am sure the letter is true,” Ethel said, rising up very haughtily. “It is not by calling me bad names that your ladyship will disprove it. Keep them, if you please, for my Aunt Julia; she is sick and weak, and can’t defend herself. I do not choose to bear abuse from you, or lectures from Lord Kew. He happened to be here a short while since, when the letter arrived. He had been good enough to come to preach me a sermon on his own account. He to find fault with my actions!” cried Miss Ethel, quivering with wrath and clenching the luckless paper in her hand. “He to accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making improper acquaintances! He began his lectures too soon. I am not a lawful slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as I am free.”
“And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcome, and you showed him that letter?” said the old lady.
“The letter was actually brought to me whilst his lordship was in the midst of his sermon,” Ethel replied. “I read it as he was making his speech,” she continued, gathering anger and scorn as she recalled the circumstances of the interview. “He was perfectly polite in his language. He did not call me a fool or use a single other bad name. He was good enough to advise me and to make such virtuous pretty speeches, that if he had been a bishop he could not have spoken better; and as I thought the letter was a nice commentary on his lordship’s sermon, I gave it to him. I gave it to him,” cried the young woman, “and much good may it do him. I don’t think my Lord Kew will preach to me again for some time.”
“I don’t think he will indeed,” said Lady Kew, in a hard dry voice. “You don’t know what you may have done. Will you be pleased to ring the bell and order my carriage? I congratulate you on having performed a most charming morning’s work.”
Ethel made her grandmother a very stately curtsey. I pity Lady Julia’s condition when her mother reached home.
All who know Lord Kew may be pretty sure that in that unlucky interview with Ethel, to which the young lady has alluded, he just said no single word to her that was not kind, and just, and gentle. Considering the relation between them, he thought himself justified in remonstrating with her as to the conduct which she chose to pursue, and in warning her against acquaintances of whom his own experience had taught him the dangerous character. He knew Madame d’Ivry and her friends so well that he would not have his wife-elect a member of their circle. He could not tell Ethel what he knew of those women and their history. She chose not to understand his hints—did not, very likely, comprehend them. She was quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had never been told before her. She was indignant at the surveillance which Lord Kew exerted over her, and the authority which he began to assume. At another moment and in a better frame of mind she would have been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after she did justice to his many admirable qualities—his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this time against the bondage in which her family strove to keep her. The very worldly advantages of the position which they offered her served but to chafe her the more. Had her proposed husband been a young prince with a crown to lay at her feet, she had been yet more indignant very likely, and more rebellious. Had Kew’s younger brother been her suitor, or Kew in his place, she had been not unwilling to follow her parents’ wishes. Hence the revolt in which she was engaged—the wayward freaks and outbreaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the justice of Lord Kew’s reproofs. That self-consciousness was not likely to add to her good-humour. No doubt she was sorry for having shown Lord Kew the letter the moment after she had done that act, of which the poor young lady could not calculate the consequences that were now to ensue.
Lord Kew, on glancing over the letter, at once divined the quarter whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, as our characters described by those who hate us are not unlike. He had passed a reckless youth; indeed he was sad and ashamed of that past life, longed like the poor prodigal to return to better courses, and had embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a union with a woman young, virtuous, and beautiful, against whom and against heaven he hoped to sin no more. If we have told or hinted at more of his story than will please the ear of modern conventionalism, I beseech the reader to believe that the writer’s purpose at least is not dishonest, nor unkindly. The young gentleman hung his head with sorrow over that sad detail of his life and its follies. What would he have given to be able to say to Ethel, “This is not true.”
His reproaches to Miss Newcome of course were at once stopped by this terrible assault on himself. The letter had been put in the Baden post-box, and so had come to its destination. It was in a disguised handwriting. Lord Kew could form no idea even of the sex of the scribe. He put the envelope in his pocket, when Ethel’s back was turned. He examined the paper when he left her. He could make little of the superscription or of the wafer which had served to close the note. He did not choose to caution Ethel as to whether she should burn the letter or divulge it to her friends. He took his share of the pain, as a boy at school takes his flogging, stoutly and in silence.