Grace Lee: a tale

Chapter I

The snow feb fast; soft, white, and noiseless it was borne past the parlour window. A gray sky, a white, hilly horizon bounded the out ward prospect. Within all was touched with the red firelight : tables, chairs, cabinet, and mirror gave back the same warm and burning glow. A gray-haired old man, with a harsh, sarcastic face, sat wrriting by the window. A middle aged, good-tempered looking woman, sewed by the fireside; further on, in the back-ground, and half gloom of the room, a slender, dark- VOL. I. ' B haired and dark-eyed girl of seventeen, sat on a low stool, with a heavy quarto, a Hebrew Bible, on her knees. One hand supported her cheek; the other rested on the book; her eyes were fixed on its strange eastern characters, her long, drooping curls half veiled the page. She was not, and never could be, pretty; yet her dark face had warmth and character, her eyes great beauty, and her young form much grace.

Her name was Grace Lee. She was born far away, amongst Welsh hbls, but she was an orphan, and for two years she had bved with her guardian, an old priest, Doctor Crankey, and his cousin, Miss Amy Crankey, in one of the wildest nooks of northern ~Ens land. Doctor Crankey was a learned man ; Aliss Crankey was skibed in every art of the needle : both zealously taught the young girl all they knew, and thus an accompbshed scholar and as accomplished a needle-woman grew up Grace Lee in a bleak and lonely home. A gust of wind swept by the house ; it died far away with a faint murmur on wild moors. The young girl bent her ear and listened. " How far that wind .has come," she thought; "how far it must be going — how wide the world must be." She put her book away; she left the room; she went up to the highest part of the house, a terrace on the roof.

The snow fell on her bare head; the keen north wind blew back her hair from her face, but her blood was ardent and young; her cheek only freshened to feel the blast, she only shook her head and smiled at the falling snow. She looked around her ; a wide, white plain spread to the foot of white hills ; a pale sky met a paler horizon; she clasped her hands on her bosom; she raised herself on tiptoe; she stretched her slender neck, and bent a keen, eagle look that seemed as if it would pierce every barrier. " Ah ! " she thought again, " how wide the world must be ! " and seized with a wanderer's B longing, she thought of burning Africa, of the luxuriant New World, of fair southern Europe, with the sun shining on her brown ruins, and the blue Mediterranean washing her antique shores. " I wish I were a queen," she thought, her head pensively inclined towards her right shoul der, "but a queen without her state, without her kingdom; what place, beautiful or famous, would I not see ! what delight should not be mine !

I would do great things ; I would build cathedrals ; I would found hospitals ; I would erect palaces ; I would make a cardinal of Doctor Crankey, a duchess of Miss Amy, a princess of Lily. I would have more jewels than a sultana, more robes than there are days in the year; and withal I would be so generous and so good, that every one should love and praise Queen Grace." "Grace, my dear," said the gentle voice of Miss Crankey, from below, "will you come down and make the tea, if you please ? " The day-dreamer awoke, and laughing at her own dreams, she ran down lightly; she made the tea ; the frugal meal was soon over ; she returned to her Hebrew; Doctor Crankey to a seven years begun History of the Church ; Miss Amy to a Penelope piece of embroidery. Quiet was the evening by the bright fireside ; Grace did not feel it dull; study, too, has her charm — a charm more true than that of dreams, and almost as sweet.

Grace was, as we have said, an orphan. Two years before there had been sorrow and mourn ing in a once happy home of the bttle town of W , in Wales. Mr. George Lee lay dead in his room, his wife slept in hers the same deep sleep, and two orphans, in whom their blood did not mingle, sat desolate and sorrow stricken children in the silent parlor. They had loved in youth : fate, under the shape of angry parents, divided them early ; they yielded, parted with mutual consent, and married happily elsewhere. When, after sixteen years they met, they were both free. Mr. Lee had an only child of fourteen, Mrs. Blount a little girl of eleven ; their old love revived, they married, enjoyed one year's late and brief happiness, and died within one day of each other; each ignorant of the other's fate; each bequeathing to the other's care his or her child.

" Very distressing case," said Doctor Marsh, who sat drinking brandy-and-water in a back room, "and then what's to become of the orphans ? " He addressed his assistant, John Owen, a dark and saturnine-looking young man, who sat opposite him with folded arms, and head bent on his bosom. " Cannot they be lawyers, bke thefr fathers ? " he replied. " Lawyers ! Girls, lawyers ! " " Oh ! they are girls, are they ? " "Bless me, sir, have you been visiting Mr. George Lee a year, and don't you know whether his children are boys or girls ? " " I had not paid attention ! " carelessly replied Owen. " Web, but you can tell me what to do ? " asked Doctor Marsh, to whom his young assistant was in all doubtful matters as an oracle. "Apply to the nearest relatives," was the laconic answer. " The Rashleighs?

I suppose you know them." " Mrs. Rashleigh is a worldly woman ; her son is a fool, a libertine, and a pedant. We were at school together ; he hates me — I despise him." This was not promising ; nevertheless, Doctor Marsh called on Mrs. Rashleigh, who resided in W , and was distantly related to the late Mrs. Lee. "I must decline interfering," coldly replied the lady, " Mrs. Lee's second marriage had not my approbation. It wbl be more proper, by far, to apply to Miss Lee." " And pray give my compliments to Miss Lee's dark-eyed young friend," half yawned Rashleigh Rashleigh, who lolled on a sofa. When the Doctor was gone, he burst out laughing, and boisterously wondered " what Miss Lee would say to having that little yellow-haired monkey, Lily Blount, palmed off on her." " My dear Rashleigh," gravely said his mother, " that does not concern us."

Miss Lee was very rich and very old. She lived in a wild, yet lovely home, between the mountains and the sea. Doctor Marsh found her sitting in her chair, and chastising half-a-dozen unruly spaniels with an ebon crutch. With her he found a beautiful orphan girl, Margaret Livermere, whom she had reared as her companion, and an elegant, handsome man, Gerald Lee, the rich London banker, her favourite cousin and future heir. The Doctor asked to speak to Miss Lee alone ; Mr. Lee stepped out into the garden ; Miss Liver mere slipped away by a side door : a while after the visitor saw them vanishing together behind a group of trees. In the meanwhile, he explained his errand. Miss Lee received him very rudely. "Sir," she said shortly, "you are a meddling man. Mr. Lee's daughter and Mr. Lee's pro perty are both confided to the care of a Doctor Crankey, a priest, and third or fourth uncle of the first Mrs. Lee, who was a Papist.

I have nothing to do with that little girl. As to the other one, I am amazed at you. She belongs, by right, to a mad-woman, called Miss Blount, who has au eternal law-suit with the Walton Company, and is to have blue and yellow livery when she wins it. Another time, sir," she added, giving him a hard look, " you will do well to think before you act." Rather abashed the Doctor withdrew ; he found out the directions of Doctor Crankey, and of Miss Blount, and wrote to both. Accordingly, on the same day, and by the same coach, arrived a short little old man in B a rusty cassock, and a tab gaunt lady in shabby mourning. Without knowing one another they had quarrelled concerning a coach window which Miss Blount persisted in opening, and the Rev. Doctor Crankey persisted in shutting again. The house soon became too hot to hold them.

Miss Blount was grand, and talked of the Walton Company, which she was going to crush ; and of the blue and yellow liveries. Doctor Crankey said " Fudge ! " and longed to be back to his History of the Church, and his quiet home in the North. To crown matters, Miss Blount took a hearty dislike to Grace Lee, whom she called a bold, black-eyed little thing ; and Doctor Crankey as heartily disliked little Lily, in whose blue eyes he saw ingratitude written, and whose eulogy he kindly summed up with the reflection, " that Judas was fair-haired." In short, peace was not restored until the belligerent parties went each his and her own way, bearing off his and her ward as spolia opima. " Thank Heaven ! " piously said Doctor Marsh to John Owen, on the morning of that day; " I never have been more distressed."

The young man smiled with lofty surprise, more scornful than sympathetic, then returned to the perusal of the heavy legal volumes belonging to the late Mr. George Lee, and which had found no purchaser in the pre ceding day's sale. " Good-bye, Mr. John Owen," said a soft voice at his elbow. He looked up and saw a dark young girl standing by his side. " You do not remember me ? " she asked " No." " I am Grace — Grace Lee. I saw you yesterday reading these books ; and before yesterday, too. They are mine. When I am twenty-one I shall give them to you. I lend them to you until then. Dqctor Crankey says I may. Good-bye." And before the surprised young man could reply she was gone. And now two years were passed, and passion and circumstance had scattered them all as the winds of heaven scatter seed on the surface of the soil, each to bear fruit in its season.

Doctor Marsh alone remained in W . His assistant, John Owen, had gone to London. There he had no sooner taken his degrees as a surgeon than he suddenly forsook medicine for the bar. Mrs. Rashleigh was in Paris, patiently waiting the return of her prodigal Rashleigh Rashleigh, wdio had gone to Baden-Baden with a pretty actress — his third or fourth affair of the kind. The beautiful Margaret Livermere was disgraced and banished; she had charmed too surely the heir and cousin. Gerald Lee was hesitatins: ■o between love and mammon ; Miss Lee was dying, full of wrath and disappointment. Lily Blount was in the south of England with Miss Blount ; daily she heard of the Walton Company, and of the blue and yellow liveries ; and daily she wished herself dead ; and Grace, happy in her wild, northern home, charmed her mind with classic lore, Hebrew, and romantic dreams.

"Child," said Doctor Crankey, seeing her so assiduous, " you will get blind over that Hebrew. Amuse yourself a little bit with the golden-mouthed Saint John Chrysostom." And he handed over to her the ponderous Greek Father. At ten Miss Amy rose. " Grace," she began, then paused. Grace was fast asleep. Her arms were folded on the broad volume open before her; her profane girl's head rested on the hallowed page; it was a favourite author, a rare and costly edition, yet Doctor Crankey only smiled. "You need not waken her," he said. "I want to speak to her as soon as I finish this paragraph." " Law ! Doctor, you surely will not blame the poor child if she fell asleep." "By no means," .he interrupted; "good night. Miss Crankey." Miss Amy sighed and left the room. She had once been young, and the gray Doctor too; and then they. had been on the very verge of love : hut Miss Amy was capricious and John Crankey was exacting; they parted coldly, he to take priest's orders, she to settle down into a calm old maid.

When they met again, years had passed, and he could ask Miss Amy to keep house for him, and she could accept the office. Of the passages of thefr youth he remembered nothing, she but a little and that « not often. At length the paragraph was finished ; Doctor Crankey turned to rouse the sleeper, and found her reading over his shoulder. He only smiled. "Web! what d'ye say to that, Grace? That's touch-me-not, eh ! " He rubbed his hands and chuckled. "You see, my dear, monks are very good people; but they live out of the world, and I am an old man of the world, you see. Bless you, child, I know all its tricks and all its ways." Grace went round and sat down on the hearth at his feet. "What is it?" she said. "You had some thing to say to me; I heard you. What is it ? " " So, Miss, you were pretending sleep."

"I was asleep, but your voice woke me. What is it ? " "You have lost your third cousin and name sake, Miss Grace Lee — she is dead." "I do not remember her. Must I go into mourning ? " " She has made you her heir." " Ah ! Why so ? " quietly asked Grace. "It was her fancy, and a woman's fancy is her law. Her first will was in favour of her other cousin, Gerald Lee, but he displeased her." "How?" interrupted Grace, in her direct way. "By marrying a lady, whom Miss Lee did not like — a Miss Margaret Livermere." " Are they married ? " " Not yet ; don't tease, child. What is it to you if they are married or not ? Well, as I was saying, Miss Lee thought proper to make you her heir. She also thought proper to indite a letter, addressed to you, which you alone are to read. Now I scorn a be as I scorn the devil, and what I think I say.

My candid opinion is, that the late Miss Lee was cracked, and but that I rely on your judg ment and principles, Grace, this letter you should never see. I warn you to read it with caution. Here it is." He handed her a letter. Grace took it, broke the seal, read a few lines, and looked thoughtful, then slowly extending her hand, she dropped the letter on the burning coals. A flame caught and consumed it ; at once it shrivelled into a black scroll. Doctor Crankey looked at her a little anxiously ; but she said quietly : " There was nothing so wonderful in Miss Lee's letter; a trust and a request, no more. " Nothing touching your religion — nothing involving a principle of right or wrong." " No, indeed," replied Grace ; and looking up at him archly, she laughed. Doctor Crankey breathed, relieved; a week's anxiety had that sealed packet given him.

He laid his hand on the young girl's head, and smoothing her dark hair, he said, " Child ! why do not you ask the amount of your inheritance ? " " Because I can guess : a hundred a year or so. Oh ! I shab be quite an heiress ! " The priest bent his keen gray eyes on hers, so soft and dark. " Child," he replied impressively, " Miss Lee was rich ; she called yearly thousands her own. No one knew or knows how many. You are now one of the wealthiest women in all England." The eyes of Grace opened; her bps parted with surprise. Doctor Crankey continued ■ "God grant you may make a noble use of your wealth: God grant you may never forget gold is but dross in His sight." She did not reply, but sate mute and stib at his feet. " Humph ! you take it coolly. I thought you would jump with joy." " Jump !

" echoed Grace, with a start and a look of offended dignity. "What for? It is but money." Yet, even as she spoke, a bright red spot burned on her cheek ; her eyes shone with strange light; and as she sat with her arms clasped around her knees, she smiled. "What are you thinking of?" asked Doctor Crankey, who was watching her. She looked up, and replied earnestly : " Doctor Crankey, who was it that went to the oracle of Delphi and chose the short and the glorious life — Alexander or Achilles ? " "Never mind, child," repbed Doctor Crankey, who would not confess that he did not remember. "'Tis no matter," resumed Grace. "I, too, in thought, went to Delphi this very morning — I, too, chose the short and sweet ; and, see, this evening the oracle is fulfilled." " Go to bed, child," interrupted Doctor Crankey, " and let Delphi and all such heathenish fancies alone ; go to bed bke a good girl."

Grace gave her guardian a curious look ; but she rose docile and obedient. She bade him good-night, and went up to her own room, a nun-like cell. There she sat down and leaned her cheek upon her hand, absorbed in thought. " Indeed, you have been to Delphi," whispered a secret voice. " Yes, you, too, have done bke Alexander — " and, looking up, she repbed, smiling : " What matter ! one can put a whole lifetime in a few years ; and better the quick and delightful than the wearisome and the slow." And throwing back her head, like one resolved to chase all troublesome thoughts away, she rose. In a few minutes her prayers were said, and her young head laid on her pillow was locked in the slumbers fast and sound of seventeen.

Chapter II

Who would not travel ? Who would not feel strange suns ; behold new skies ; hear the greeting of foreign speech, and pass a wanderer amongst scenes beautiful and still ; amongst nations living and moving, yet left behind with their passions, thefr contests, their hopes and sorrows, like the images of a dream ? Six years were past and gone. In a strange place — in a strange land the dreaming girl, who on a snowy day had wished herself a queen, read, as in a book, the vivid story of years of wandering. She saw broad seas and circling horizons ; a boat cutting through the green billows, and leaving its brilliant track behind; long blue lines of coast glittering through white mists; open ports with shipping, with bronzed sailors and fishermen, with all the life and all the noise of commerce. Then came sunny plains with their harvests, and brown peasant men and women looking up by the dusty road, as the carriage passed and vanished through scenes of soft rural beauty, by green hills with hamlet, church and churchyard, by calm valleys with hidden streams softly flowing in cool evening shadows.

Then gay cities, all mirth and splendour, followed; then wild scenes, deep lakes sleeping midst stern mountains, with fir-tree forests and snowy brows, and sounding cataracts, above which on broad wing the royal eagle flew screaming. Then, past the mountain ranges, past the wildness and grandeur of nature, spread lands all light, all warmth and softness ; lands of poetry, art, and beauty, with ruined temples and heroic battle-fields, now trodden by enslaved races ; still farther and farther in the spreading desert, within the shadow of the pyramids, by the ancient Nile, by forsaken kingdoms, she followed her own track until she came to an Eastern city, rising on an Eastern sky, to the gloom of an antique church where lamps burned before a sacred shrine, and like one wakening from a dream, she found herself kneeling by the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

For two years and more she had been a wanderer, and now her pilgrimage over, she had come to pray a last time where she knew she never could pray again. Long before sunrise Grace had left Jerusalem. We will not follow her through the whole of her homeward track ; it gave to her story a few bright pages more ; it left images that enchanted her whole life, but it had no influence on her destiny. At Rome she paused and rested. Miss Lee travelled alone ; she was twenty three, wealthy and fearless. Until her twenty first birthday, she had remained in the North with Doctor Crankey and Miss Amy, exactly as if no change in her life had occurred. Not until the very day she was of age had Grace entered on the full and double enjoyment of fortune and liberty. Then, indeed, spreading her wings like a long captive bird, she had taken her flight towards the burning East.

Gold smoothed a path else too rough, and charmed away peril. She travelled in the style, with the suite, and with ab the privileges of a princess. The world might have reproved this adventurous spirit in a poorer woman, but it admired and extolled it in the wealthy lady. Wherever she went, she left behind her a golden shower that won her still more golden opinions. In France she was Lady Lee, la grande dame Anglaise ; in Italy, an English Principessa ; in the East, she was the Sultana from the West, and she all but eclipsed the fame of Lady Esther Stanhope. In England she was plain Miss Lee, an eccentric, independent girl, who had travelled over half the globe, who was prodigiously rich, and every one knows what that is in England, whom no one knew personally, and whom everybody was dying to know.

Miss Lee had a careless, artistic sort of tem per ; she did not seek or seem to value society ; it came to her unsought and courted her notice. The Baronne de Montreuil, wife of the French ambassador in Rome, had met and known Miss Lee in the East ; she could not hear of her having any other home in Rome than Palace Colonna. A very charming Frenchwoman was Madame la Baronne, but then every one knew she was not eminent for disinterested friend ships ; that the Baron was poor ; and that their favourite nephew, Eugene de Montreuil, owned nothing beyond his salaire d'attache d'ambassade, barely sufficient, he disdainfully owned, to keep him in cigars. The Honourable Mrs. Chesterfield, the celebrated English beauty, VOL. I. C who reigned supreme over the highest of the several circles of English visitors in the Holy City, had no peace of mind or body until she succeeded in getting introduced to Miss Lee.

Grace was not handsome, she was wealthy. She could not be a rival; she might be a very useful friend. Mrs. Chesterfield declared she was the most delightful, original creature ; and both in the grand, but rather dull monde diplo matique ; and in the little, but brilliant English world ; Aliss Lee, without effort, produced a decided sensation. The princely Colonnas did not erect palaces for their descendants to let them furnished ; but the pride of Italy is gone, and for years the French embassy has resided in the noble building which stands by the Church of the Twelve Apostles. As the Honourable Mrs. Ches terfield's carriage entered the wide court, and drew up before the broad staircase ; she felt, with a bttle touch of envy, that she, the noblyborn, but rather poor English beauty, had to vegetate in a furnished house ; whilst this wealthy plebeian lived in a palace, guest to the ambassador of His Majesty the most Christian King.

She crossed the ante-room, hung with grim-looking Colonnas : Miss Lee's French maid, and Miss Lee's courier, and Miss Lee's footman, were superintending a whole court of tradesmen from the Piazza di Spagna and the Via Condotti. Mrs. Chesterfield con descended to pause a moment and look on. Here a costly and elegant mosaic table was unpacked ; an exquisite copy of the whole Roman Forum in Rosso Antico stood close by; and then there were marble cups, and vases, and bronzes beyond number ; and a jeweller she saw with a morocco case ; and a young man with a large band-box. '• You have enough to do," said Mrs. Ches terfield, smiling to Mademoiselle Dupuis. " Madame can have no idea of it," replied o the French maid, with uplifted eyes. "Wbl Madame be so good as to pass this way ? Made moiselle is just gone to the garden."

" I shall go and find her ; you need not come with me, I know the way." Mademoiselle Dupuis would fain have re monstrated, but a gracious, yet imperious wave of the hand both checked and sbenced her. Mrs. Chesterfield walked slowly through that beautiful old Italian garden ; the summer flowers of other lands there bloomed and grew in the winter air, redolent with the sweet scent of violets. The red orange glowed through its sombre leaves ; the yellow lemon hung from its bending boughs, or Hesperides-like, the golden fruit was strewn on the dark earth. A clear fountain poured down from a stone niche full of green ferns, and flowed away with a broken sound. The whole place had a forsaken look ; the mutbated ancient statues grouped around seemed to gaze with a melancholy air down the silent and neglected path.

Mrs. Chesterfield took that to her right. It brought her to the last terrace. Gray sculptured masses of what was once a Temple of the Sun lay half buried in the earth. The God of Light looked down carelessly on his ruined shrine. On a fragment sat, or rather half reclined, Grace Lee. She wore a striped Tunis sbk, of light texture ; it had the hues of a land of the sun, gorgeous, not gaudy. It was made in Eastern fashion, and suited both her figure and dark complexion. The vest and sleeves were fastened by carbuncle buttons, set with brilliants ; a narrow striped scarf carelessly tied around her ebon hair completed her attire. The sun that shone on her whole figure gave it warmth and brilbancy. She basked in its heat like one to whom it was life. She did not see Mrs. Chester field until the lady stood close by her, and said, softly, " How can you bear that sun ?

" "Yery well, after that of Egypt," replied Grace, looking round laughing ; " my mother was a salamander, and her daughter has an innate love for fire under every shape, but especially under that of yonder glorious globe. However, there is a cool bit of shade for yrou." "Why, what have you been doing?" resumed Mrs. Chesterfield, as she sat down and saw that all around Miss Lee the ground was strewn with exquisite flowers. Grace laughed. A scroll of paper at her feet caught Mrs. Chesterfield's attention ; she picked it up, unfolded it, and began reading : "Anima mia" — " A love sonnet. Oh ! I must not be so indiscreet as to go on ! " " No, it is not a love sonnet," said Grace ; " at all events, it is highly respectful. Every morning, in such a bouquet, I get one — Heaven knows from whom ! " " I can enlighten you," replied Mrs. Ches terfield, a little bitterly ; " this is Prince Negri's writing."

And for a while she was mute and thought : — " This, then, was why he yesterday looked so cool as he rode past the carriage on the Pincio. Let him, mean, interested man !" Yet she sighed. She was beautiful, noble, a widow, but poor. Mario Negri was handsome, rich, and a Roman Prince. Until the arrival of Miss Lee he had been sedulously attentive. Since the dawning of this new star coming from the East, with a halo of Eastern wealth and splendour around her, he had grown distant. Mrs. Chesterfield now knew why ; but she was a woman of the world. She could look dispassionately on such things, and like her' unconscious rival none the less. She had fully recovered by the time Grace said, carelessly, " Prince Negri ; I do not remember. What is he like?" "Dark, handsome, and noble-looking." " So they are all; and then there are so many princes here !

" " Oh ! but you must have remarked him ; he is one of your hundred worshippers." " Have I a hundred ! No wonder I should not know them all : but I think I remember Prince Negri. I sat by him at Princess Borghese's, yesterday evening. He is agreeable." " Agreeable ! " echoed Mrs. Chesterfield, looking piqued ; " is that your kindest word for a man who wants to make a Roman Princess of you." Grace rose and stepped up to the terrace. On the ledge flowers bloomed in their stone vases ; below lay Rome, with her church towers, her hilly horizon, her broad circling sky. " I like Rome," said Miss Lee ; " I like her churches, where saints and martyrs sleep. I like her spoils of ancient art. I like, too, her ruins, though they cannot vie with those of Greece or Egypt. I bke her ancient palaces, her old gardens, her sunshine, and her sky.