The Little Squire. A story of three

Front matter

X THE LITTLE SQUIRE S MAMMA, List'" (/. 54. THE LITTLE SQUIRE: 3 £>torp of Chrtf. BY Mrs. Henry de la Pasture. CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited: LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE. [all rights reserved.] CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Lord of the Manor . . . . . . 9 II. The Master of the Abbey ... . . 23 III. Adrien's Mother 40 IV. Lise's Home 56 V. Adrien's Proposal , . . .70 VI. Aunt Zoe to the Rescue 88 VII. Cicely 103 VIII. The Old Servants 116 IX. The Miller's Daughter 131 X. The Miniatures 151 XI. Cicely's Warning 165 XII. The Theft . . . " 181 XIII. The Wedding Day

Chapter I. The Lord Of The Manor

The June sun beat steadily down on the high road, shining on the little figure of a child, in a pink cotton frock and sun-bonnet, who was trudging along in the white dust. Everything was burnt and dry — the hedges, the trees, and the fields on either side of her, parched and brown with want of rain and the long heat. The child's bare legs and soft arms were al ready as brown as exposure could make them ; but the fierce rays seemed to add a burnish to them, and they glowed like ripe hazel-nuts against her light cotton drapery. Presently, with a sigh of relief, she turned into a lane which afforded her some shelter ; and then, pausing before a gap in the hedge, she first looked carefully round her, and then crept through it on all-fours. Now she was on the outskirts of a wood, and she trod softly on the crackling undergrowth, and crushed the little, white stars of the common anemone beneath her roughly-shod feet.

She went steadily forward, not staying even to pluck the blue dog-violets or to glance at the tufts of yellow primroses that began to stud her path here and there in those shady portions of the wood where the sunshine had lacked warmth to pene trate and warn the wild flowers that spring was giving place to summer. In these thickening shades, however, she ven tured to unloose the strings of the bonnet which held her little face in its remote depths, and, taking it off, she shook the dark soft rings of hair from her heated neck, and let the air blow on her flushed cheeks. Her face was that rather of an interesting than of a beautiful child. The features were small and refined, and her pale complexion had an ivory or olive tinge that was almost foreign ; but her great hazel eyes and straight fine brows gave her an expression at once pathetic and intelligent ; and when she was roused or excited the eyes shone like stars, and made the little face almost beautiful.

She now found herself in the very heart of the wood, and, stretching her little form on the moss, she very deliberately prepared to rest herself and enjoy a tiny dinner of bread-and-cheese she produced from a small basket on her arm. In the very act, however, of lifting one dimpled brown hand to her mouth she was so startled by a sound close at hand that she dropped the crust of bread and started again to her feet. The unmistakable sound of a child sobbing came through the wood and smote on her ears. Without hesitation, she turned and went in the direction whence the sound proceeded. Pushing aside the undergrowth with her hands, she peered cautiously forward into a hollow similar to the one she had chosen for her own resting place ; and there she saw, lying face downwards on the grass, a boy, crying bitterly, and with utter abandon, his head resting on his outstretched arms.

" Don't cry," said the little girl, pityingly, and she knelt down by his side ; but the effect of her gentle attempt at consolation was unexpected. He jumped up impetuously. " How dare you come and spy on me ? " he cried angrily, dashing away his tears with the back of his hand and turning a furious face, stained with red patches from crying, upon her. " Who are you, coming creeping in here ? You are trespassing, don't you know that ? This is my wood ; you had no business here at all." It was the little girl's turn to cry now ; she shrank back, terrified at his vehemence, and two large tears gathered in her eyes and hung on her long, black lashes. The boy, satisfied at having redeemed his character for manliness, began to feel a little ashamed, and spoke more gently, but still in an admonitory tone.

" How did you manage to find your way here ? Where do you come from ? I don't recognise you, and yet you don't look like a tramp, and I know all the village children." " I is not one of the village children," said the little girl, in childish tones as refined as his own, and a very slight and pretty foreign accent. " I'se a stranger." " I beg your pardon," said the boy, getting rather red, and stammering, " I — I " " I thought you was in trouble," she went on, with gentle emphasis, " an' I corned to see if I could help you, and I did not know I was trepspassing." " So I was in trouble ; you were quite right," said the boy, becoming gloomy again. " Perhaps you would like to tell me about it ? I often wish I had someone to tell," she said wistfully. " Why, are you an only one, then, like me ?

" he said curiously. " Yes ; there's only my mother. We live in the cottage all over roses just outside the village." " Oh, you are the new tenants," cried the boy, with interest. " Then you are one of my people, after all ! " " One of your people ! " she repeated in aston ishment. " Does we belong to you, then ? " " No, no," said the boy, colouring again ; " of course, I only mean you live on my estate, in one of my houses. It all belongs to me, you know, round here." " Belongs to you — to a little boy like you ! still more astonished. " I am not a little boy at all," said the young gentleman, offended. " I am a good deal older than you, little girl. I am nearly twelve." " I am only ten," she answered ; " but mother says I am like an old woman." " What is your mother's name ? " " It used to be Madame Brunei ; but that is not her name now," said the child, innocently.

" It is my name, because it was my father's. I am Lise Brunei." " That is a French name," said the boy ex citedly. " No wonder you are different to the village children, although you do live in one of my cottages. How do you come to have a French name, I wonder? " " They said in the village it was 'cos my father was a frog," said Lise ; " but that is not true, for he was an artist, and he had a French name because he was a Frenchman, I suppose." " Then why are you English ? " " Mother was English, for this is the village she was born in, and then she was the miller's little girl, and her name was Bessie Barton." " Bessie Barton ? I have heard of her. Nanny says she went to the bad, and that was why the miller died of a broken heart," said the boy, solemnly quoting. " She went to Paris. She did nothing bad," said Lise, with soft indignation.

" My father came to sketch by the mill stream, and fell in love with her, and her father would not let them marry, so they ran away ; and mother says many and many's the time she regretted it," said Lise. " That is very romantic ; almost as romantic as about me," said the boy. " Like what one reads in Scott, you know." " I don't know who Scott is," said Lise humbly. " Well, Scott — was Scott, you know," said her instructor, vaguely. " He wrote splendid books, all about knights and kings and queens and adventures — and sometimes " (gloomily) " they are the only joy a fellow has. But go on about your mother ; why did she repent it many and many a time ? " " I suppose because my father died an' left her," said Lise, " an' we were alone and we were starving, only a kind man but I was to say nothing about that," suddenly stopping short.

" There ! just as 1 was getting interested," he said impatiently ; " surely you might trust me!' " Well, but I don't know you," said Lise, though she experienced the fearful joy of most of her sex in hovering on the brink of a confidence. " I am Adrien de Coursay," said the boy, drawing himself up as though he expected her at once to fall down and worship him. " Oh ! " said Lise, trying to look wiser. " Well, in that case, if you give me your word not to tell anyone, I will tell you. An Englishman (I think he was a clergyman) helped us — wasn't it kind of him ? — and he told mother he would always take care of us, and so, of course, she married him. And then, what do you think ? I suppose he did not care about us so much when he knew us better, for he ran away ! " " Ran away ! and were you not very glad ?

Was he not your step-father ? and how could you like your step-father ? " cried Adrien, in hot displeasure. " I do not remember much about it," said Lise apologetically ; " you see I was very little, only a few months old, but I do remember mother was often angry about it afterwards — oh, so angry, worse than usual " — shuddering. " But that must have been later on, when she found he never came back." " And then — " Then mother worked — needlework — to keep us both, and she saved up money, lots an' lots, in a stocking, and when she had enough we corned a long journey and got here, an' she took me to the cottage all over roses and said we were going to live there. And she showed me the old mill and where she used to play, and she said I should see my grandfather ; but then she found he was dead, and she took me to the churchyard, and, instead, there was a big stone with his name on it, which did just as well," said Lise thought fully ; " for he would perhaps have been very cross with me, and now he says nothing, and I can go and get primroses and violets and put them on his grave, and feel we might have been friends after all."

" But is your mother very poor, then ? " said Adrien, with a lordly determination that they should stay in their cottage rent free. " I don't azackly know," said Lise. " You see, mother doesn't talk to me; but the lawyer gen tleman in the nice white house in the village eave her lots of money, and she told me her father had left it behind for her because he couldn't take it with him," said Lise puzzled. "And I did not understand why he could want to take it with him when he was dead ; it wouldn't be any use in the coffin, you know. But when I asked mother, she told me to hold my tongue. Mother never 'splains things to me, and there is such lots of things I want to know." " I can explain them to you," said Adrien grandly. " I like you very much, Lise, because you are partly French, and my grandfather was a Frenchman ; and I never spoke to a real French child before, so I shall be your friend.

And I give you leave to come into my wood whenever you like ; but you must not let the village children see you come, or they will be following you." " I will be very careful," said Lise humbly. " I daresay mother will not mind my talking to you. She said I must not talk to the village children, 'cos my father was a gentleman, and that meant I should grow up into a lady." " But Bessie Barton ," he began doubtfully ; and then he stopped himself, and ended proudly, " Of course, your mother is quite right — one is what one's father was. Well, Lise, / will help to — to make you all right, you know ; I think it would amuse me. But I forbid you to tell anyone about it, mind. It would spoil the whole thing if everyone knew ; and we might have quite a nice time together." b Yes ! " said Lise, with sparkling eyes.

" Well, first of all," said Adrien importantly, " you shall be a princess, and I'll be the knight. You shall be imprisoned by your fairy godmother in this hollow tree, and / shall come and see you every day, and climb into your lonely tower by your hair." " It isn't long enough," said Lise ruefully. " What does that matter, silly ? we're only pretending. But perhaps you never read any fairy tales, and, if so, it's not your fault ; and I tell you what I'll do. My longest play-time is every evening after tea, so I shall always come here about half-past five ; and I'll bring some books and hide them in that tree, and you can come when you like and read them. Sometimes I shall bring you cake and things, too " (suddenly realising this might not be sufficient temptation), " for, you know, your cruel godmother keeps you half-starved.

But, mind, you must keep our secret solemnly, for I shall find out in a minute if you tell anyone, and then I'll never play with you again." " I promise you faithfully," said Lise. '' Take your solemn Alfred-David," advised Adrien. " Say, ' I do swear it.' " " I do swear it," said Lise, much alarmed. " Well, now you've taken an oath ; and, mind, if you break it, something dreadful will happen to you," said Adrien warningly. " What were you doing, by-the-bye, when you came and found me just now?" " I was having my dinner," said Lise. " Mother told me to go along and not bother her, and gave it to me in a little basket ; and it was so hot I thought of this nice place I found once, so I corned here, through a hole in the hedge, an' I thought I would eat my dinner here." " Well, you may fetch it and eat it, if you like," said the lord of the manor graciously.

He made rather a face when he saw the slice of bread and the red cheese ; but, when Lise timidly offered him a bite, he accepted it all the same. " You see, I'm rather hungry," he explained, with his mouth full. " Some unpleasant things happened at home, and I was obliged to leave the table without any dinner. If it had only been an hour later ! " with a sigh. "Wouldn't they give you any dinner?" said Lise pityingly. "Of course they would, but I refused to eat it. They wouldn't let me sit in my own place," said Adrien with dignity; "and so I left them to eat their dinner together." " Left who ? " — very timidly. B My mother and Vernon." Who is Vernon ? " " You should say Mr. Vernon. Only men talk of each other by their names," corrected Adrien. " Well, he is my tutor, and I hate him ; but I can't tell you about it, so don't ask any questions," gloomily.

" Here, I will finish that crust for you, if you like. Is that all you have for dinner ? Then I shall bring you a really good lump of cake to night. I'll tell Mrs. Brownlow — that's our house keeper — that I want it to eat in the woods ; and we will share it. Now I expect I'd better go. It's time for my afternoon reading. What a bore ! " " Am I to go away ? Couldn't I stay here till you come back ? " said Lise. " But won't your mother mind ? " " Oh, no ; I go out early to be out of the way, and often I am not back till dusk. She never minds. She knows I won't speak to the village children, and there's nothing to do in the house. I like to sit alone out of doors." "All day?" said Adrien astonished. Yes ; if it's fine." " But what do you do with yourself? " " I think about things," said Lise shyly, " and wonder about things, and make up songs, and sometimes, if mother gives me a bit of paper and a pencil, I write them down, and sing them."

" Well, some day you shall sing them to me," said Adrien graciously. " And I'll tell you a lot of stories, if you like — ones I've read — and that'll help to pass the time quickly till I'm grown up." " Why do you want to be grown up ? " " Never you mind," he said darkly ; " there are reasons." " I didn't mean to be rude," said Lise. " Mother always tells me not to ask so many questions ; but sometimes I feel I must." " Well, you may ask me questions ; but, of course, I needn't answer unless I like. Look here, have you got a governess, or are you going to school ? " " I don't know," said Lise. " A lady in Paris taught me for a long time, and mother said she couldn't afford to let me learn any more ; but when I'm older I'm to go to a grand finishing school ; she's going to save up to pay for it."

" Well, I expect I may as well give you a few lessons in between," said Adrien, " or you'll be forgetting even how to read. I tell you what. You shall read to me a bit now and then — I don't mind being read to, if it's something amusing and not a lot of rot about history and things — and I'll teach you, oh, no end of things besides, and bring you books, and have a splendid time." The lonely little boy was really looking quite excited at the prospect of a companion ; his bright, dark eyes were sparkling, and his handsome little face flushed. He brushed his wavy chestnut hair from his forehead, and held out his hand to Lise. "Good-bye," he said; "I shall see you again this evening." " Good-bye," said Lise. She stood on tip-toe and innocently offered him her soft, round cheek. Adrien turned very red ; but he did not like to hurt her feelings, so he stooped gingerly down and gave her a hasty kiss, picked up his cap, and, with a friendly, awkward little nod, disappeared among the trees.

Chapter II. The Master Of The Abbey

RlVERSWOLD ABBEY was a fine type of an ancient manor-house, situated in the very heart of England, and overlooking stretches of fair woodlands and rich meadows, bounded by a silver winding stream. The old-fashioned garden was laid out in terraces. To the right of the house was a half ruined and half-restored old chapel, which had originally belonged to the Knights Templars, and this was surrounded by a stiff parterre bounded by yew hedges. The house itself had from one side the appearance of an old abbey, and this was the more ancient half, filled with winding passages, crooked steps, and little odd, inconvenient rooms ; but the front of the house had been restored and added to many years back, and rebuilt in white stone in the palatial Italian style then in vogue. Here was a spacious hall, with a marble centre and fountain, and stately white pillars supporting the gilded gallery.

This part of the house pleased Madame de Coursay, little Adrien's mother, who was fond of the white statuary, the heavy gilding, and the stately archways that led from one spacious re ception-room into another. These had been furnished a hundred years ago for a bride, and Mrs. de Coursay admired the marble tables and gilt chairs, and the white velvet carpets with wreaths of flowers, the white-and yellow silk panels, the tapestry, and the large mirrors and embroidered footstools. But to little Adrien it all seemed too empty, and echoing, and light, and his favourite room was the long, low drawing-room in the old part of the house, which had small, homely windows and wide seats, and a floor of polished oak, and was furnished " all to match," as he said, in faded yellow brocade. His principal reason for liking it, however, was that the quaint and stately furniture, the cabinets, and even the short little curtains before the windows, had all belonged to his great-grand mother, and had furnished her favourite room in the great chateau which would have been his in heritance had his grandfather not been exiled from France during the Revolution ; whereas the furni ture in his mother's rooms had belonged to the impoverished English family who had preceded them in the Abbey.

The old drawing-room was full of family treasures, and Adrien regarded with equal awe and interest the rows of miniatures, the inlaid snuff-boxes, and the various sacred relics of the great-grandfather who had been guillotined : the knob of his tall cane, his embroidered gloves, and the wonderful lace handkerchief, worked by his wife, which had been stained by his blood. Adrien was old enough to remember his father, and, dimly, even to recollect his lifting him up to look at these things, and telling him their sad little histories ; but they were fading very rapidly into the past, for there was no one to tell him now, and his mother hated anything sad or retrospective. In his childish way he felt that everything that had so nearly touched and interested his own fathers would be a dead letter to him soon.

" I wonder what that is — I wonder whose little carved fan this was, and why it has a ring tied to the ribbon?" he would say impatiently. "Oh, why, why didn't papa write it down ? " He remembered seeing his father ride away and look up to wave his hand to his little boy and his wife — as he ahvays did before turning into the avenue — the very morning he was killed. He remembered the screams of his mother when he was brought home, and the sense of desolation and confusion afterwards ; but, curiously enough, the most distinct recollection of all was of his own envious longing to wear a scarlet coat, and ride a big horse, and go out hunting as well as his father, who, having been born in England and sent to a public school by his parents and grandparents, in pursuance of their stern resolve to change their nationality for ever, had naturally acquired all the tastes of an English country gentleman, whilst he retained the graceful romance and sen timentality which is more the characteristic of French youth.

Adrien's elasticity and confidence drooped a little as he neared the house where, for the past eight years, he had been virtually master, as his widowed mother had been mistress. He pushed open the side oak door in the low archway over hung with roses, and went timidly across the hall to his mother's boudoir. She was resting on the sofa, not because she was an invalid, nor because she was particularly tired, but because she had the habit of resting common to the majority of women who have nothing in the world to do. She was not at all like her handsome, viva cious little son ; but he thought her as beautiful as an angel, and would sit at the foot of the sofa looking at her golden hair, her delicate face, and slender white hands, with the utmost admiration filling his honest little heart. " Well, Adrien," she said, in sweet but rather fretful tones, as he entered, " I hope you have come to tell me we shall have no more of these scenes ; for I have been making up my mind that, if they occur again, I shall send you to school."

" I wouldn't mind going to school, mother," said Adrien gloomily, " if you would — if you would — send Vernon away." " Why should I send Vernon away ? " rather sharply. " Because I hate him," said Adrien, bursting into tears. " I don't learn anything from him, at least not much, and he can't bear me either, and— and he is always taking you away from me." " Then it's nothing but jealousy that makes you dislike Mr. Vernon," said his mother, not ill-pleased, and smiling a little with gratified vanity. " You absurd child ! " " It isn't only that. I should scorn that," said Adrien, standing up, and speaking with all the dignity his twelve years could muster. " But I think him a mean humbug. Besides, I hate to see him turn up his eyes at you, and fawn ing about ; and Wilkinson says " — forgetting his prudence (Wilkinson was the butler, and Adrien's sworn ally) — " Wilkinson would tell you the same.

He said it made him sick to hear him flatter you so, and butter you up — those were his very words," triumphantly. "Wilkinson is a most impertinent, odious man," said Mrs. de Coursay, thoroughly in censed. " How dare you repeat what the ser vants presume to say about me ? If you were not a very naughty, vulgar boy, they would not dare to say things to you about your mother. Oh, it is time, indeed, that I had someone to take care of me " " What, mamma ? " said Adrien, trembling, and suddenly turning pale. " Oh, you have got to be told, and I may as well do it at once," said his mother, beginning to cry, and looking very uncomfortable. " And it is half your fault, Adrien, so don't blame me, for if you had not been such a naughty, un manageable, forward boy, I should never " " I am here, my dearest," said a musically modulated voice, and Adrien's tutor stepped softly over the threshold.

He was a gentleman of middle height, immaculately dressed, with a flower in his button-hole. His features were accurate, his eyes large and blue, his hair and moustache golden and flossy. But, though he undoubtedly deserved to be called handsome, yet neither the wax-like rose-tint of his com plexion, nor his long eye-lashes, nor even the air of extreme importance and languid self-satisfaction that characterised him, were able to redeem him from a general effect of dollishness and insignificance. " You must tell him yourself, Claud : I am sure I cannot," sobbed Mrs. de Coursay, inco herently. " And now I've begun, it's no use trying to keep it secret." " I will do anything to save you trouble— anything to please you," said Mr. Vernon soothingly. " Adrien, my boy " " I am not your boy," said Adrien rebel liously, " and I don't want to hear what you tell me.

If there is anything for me to be told, my mother can tell me herself without your help." " There, you see how little he minds what I say," cried his mother ; " but I will tell him now you are here, all the same. Adrien, it is no use for you to dislike Mr. Vernon so much — it is no use asking me to send him away." (Mr. Vernon winced and gave a mirthless smile, which Mrs. de Coursay, in her excited outpourings, did not heed.) " I can never send him away now, for I am going to marry him, and he will always live here, and be a — a — father to you." Adrien's face burnt to a dull red, he kept his eyes fixed on his mother's with a gaze of despairing supplication. " It — it can't be true," he said, in a husky little voice. " You are doing it to frighten me, mother, but I am not frightened in the least.

I — I," trying to laugh. " It is only " — then suddenly he gave up the pretence of not believing, and broke into a childish passion. " How dare you mock me, and say that man is to be my father? If you married him twenty times he wouldn't be my father," he shouted ; " and I would rather you married the coachman than him ! " " My dearest," said Mr. Vernon plaintively, " do you suppose my nerves can stand this very terrible explosion ? And if not, how then yours ? — so fragile, so sensitive ! Adrien, do you wish to be very severely punished, that you deliberately inflict this torture of sound upon us ? " " I don't care : the worst that can happen to me has happened," said Adrien recklessly. " Do you think I should mind your punishment ? Mother ! " — throwing himself on his knees by her side — " mother, you used to be fond of me when I was a little chap ; you said once we would never be separated.