The Story of Lois

Front matter

THE STORY OF LOIS a THE STORT OF LOIS BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID TC AUTHOR OF PATTY,' ' AT THE RED GLOVF,' ETC. H o it ti o n JOHN LONG 6 CHANDOS STREET, STRAND A tribute of admiration to The Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone ' Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.' Shakespeare. CONTENTS FIRST BOOK—SPRING BUDS CHAP. PAGE I. IN brinsby wood ..... 3 II. father and daughter . . . .18 III. ' as companion to a lady ' . . .24 IV. two friends ..... 32 V. HUSBAND AND WIFE . . . -37 VI. over the laurel hedge . . 44 VII. MRS ERCOTT SCHEMES . . . -53 VIII. SOPHY BUSHNELL ..... 61 IX. AN INVITATION ..... 73 X. AT MATTHEW SHIN'S . . . .84 XI. SOPHY'S WARNING ..... 90 XII. A REVELATION . . . . .94 SECOND BOOK— DEVELOPMENT XIII. LOIS TO SOPHY .... 105 XIV. ANONYMOUS XV. SOPHY TO LOIS 114 ii7 XVI. THE PICTURE GALLERY XVII.

A LETTER . 123 '3° Contents VIII CHAP. PAGE XVIII. SOPHY'S ADVICE 140 XIX. REFUSAL XX. FLIGHT . iSo '57 THIRD BOOK— BLOSSOM XXI. AT RICHARD STERN'S ... 165 XXII. RICHARD STERN'S TEMPTATION . 1 72 XXIII. MADAME GLORIAT .... 180 XXIV. GEORGE'S QUEST . . . . 188 XXV. MADAME GLORIAT'S ADVICE . . . 192 XXVI. UNEXPECTED ..... 201 XXVII. THE DINNER AT MADAME GLORIAl's . 211 FOURTH BOOK— FRUIT XXVIII. MISS MINNA HASTINGS 223 XXIX. ERCOTT YIELDS XXX. CONGRATULATION 232 241 XXXI. LOIS AND HER FATHER 248 XXXII. ' HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY ' XXXIII. SUSPICION .... 258 267 XXXIV. THE WEDDING — AND AFTER XXXV. BANNED . 276 286 XXXVI. ONE TRUE FRIEND XXXVII. LEFT ALONE 291 298 XXXVIII. ' I AM NOT FIT' 3Q5 FIRST BOOK SPRING BUDS A

Chapter I In Brinsby Wood

One, two, three, four, in silver tones from the stable clock. The heat in front of Brinsby Manor House was enough to give sunstroke to any human being under its influence. The grass-plot in the centre of the drive was burned and yellow, but on one side a group of fine chestnut trees kept the larger part of the house in deep shadow. The ancient, green-stained building, with Tudor gables, and roofs full of dormer windows, looked in need of warmth to dry up the damp that pervaded it. A well-dressed man came out of the house, looked about him, and went back to the hall for an umbrella. ' Simpson,' he said to a sleepy-looking butler, who stood in the big gloomy hall, ' there's a fine wood somewhere here ; can you tell me the shortest way to it?' The man stared. ' I'll inquire sir. I'm a stranger here.' Mr Stern remembered that the Manor House had been shut up for years ; he guessed that most of the servants had come from town with their master, and were new to the place.

His pleasant face clouded while he walked about the hall ; he shrugged his square shoulders at the evidence of damp on the walls. The man soon came back. ' I've been to ask Sir Miles, sir, but he's shut up in the library with Mr Roberts, the agent ; the gardener's the only one that knows about the place, sir.' ' Where can I find the gardener ? ' ' He's now round at the back garden door, sir. I'll show you, sir. He says the short way to the wood is through the fruit garden.' ' All right ; show me the way.' Mr Stern felt disappointed. He took up a broad leaved hat, and went by a glazed door behind the staircase into a long passage. ' So much for good intentions,' he said to himself. ' I was curious to see this picturesque, God-forsaken village, as Miles calls it ; now, I suppose, I shall have to go in the opposite direction.' The gardener stood waiting on a terrace, so weather stained and moss grown that its flag-stone pavement was hardly discernible ; a flight of broad shallow steps led down from it to a garden with long, empty flower beds.

The moss-grown sundial, about ten feet away, had doubtless once formed the centre of a quaint Dutch garden ; low box edgings showed here and there, with ragged-looking rose bushes and honeysuckles. Beyond the flower beds, the place was given up to a plantation of oak saplings, which bade fair to interlace their branches till they had walled in this side of the house with greenery. ' How damp and unwholesome it smells,' Stern thought ; ' even on such a day as this it looks dismal. If Miles leaves the place in such a neglected state, people will really believe the old tale of the curse of Brinsby. Are all English country houses as dismal as this one I wonder ? It is years since I stayed in one.' He looked at the gardener, and he thought the man's expression was unpleasant ; he had just the sort of look that went well with a family curse.

The gardener was tall, and he held his head erect, but his lean scrag of neck was long enough for seven feet of height instead of six ; his chin wanted shaving, and here and there ragged red tufts stood out from his cheeks, as though whiskers were trying to produce themselves. Both head and face were long and narrow, so were his pale blue eyes, while the prominent fleshy ears seemed, from his extreme length of throat, to be placed unnaturally high ; perhaps these characteristics, with a scowl in the eyes, gave Matthew Shin an uncanny expression. ' Good morning,' Stern said. ' I want to find Brinsby Wood. Can you put me in the shortest way to it ? ' Shin gave a sickly smile, and drew his upper lip down over the lower one. ' If so be I can't, sir, then there's no one else as can. The wood don't ought to have nothing to do with Manor House at all ; 'tweren't part of estate as it stood. 'Twere old Sir Miles, the master's grandfather, what purchased it, an' 'tain't no manner o' good ; there ain't no cover worth speaking on, no timber worth sellin'.

Last owner, he went to the dogs ; but he cut down a mortal sight of trees afore he went.' 'Ah! But can you tell me how to get to the wood ? ' Matthew Shin rubbed the back of his neck with his hairy hand. ' Comin' to that, sir. Most direct way's through village, an' cross footbridge over brook, then you strikes up hill on left ; wood's top o' hill.' He gave a mocking glance at Stern's umbrella. ' That there road lies i' the sun ; no shade till you reaches trees a-top o' hill. Now, sir, you go my way, an' you'll see the fruit garden, an' I'll learn you the path as we goes along.' As Stern followed his guide he was shocked at the widespread decay in what had evidently been an extensive garden. The fountain, presided over by a headless nymph, in the centre of the ill-kept lawn, was so covered with moss and briars that it might easily have escaped notice.

When they reached the fruit garden, Shin began to sing the praises of his plums and pears, while his listener thought the trees were more like bushy shrubs than carefully-trained wall fruit ; he was mechanically saying to himself,— ' The real curse of this place is absenteeism ; the trail of that serpent is over it all.' ' I'd like to show you my apricots, sir,' Shin said.' I grows 'em under glass ; I doubt if you've seen any foiner. They makes a lot o' work, they does.' Stern felt a dislike for the lazy fellow who took wages for tending a wilderness. ' Not to-day.' They had come to a gate in the wall. As the gardener unlocked it, he drew his other hand from his blue apron pocket, evidently expecting a tip. Stern gave him a coin ; then he began to follow the directions he had received. He was glad to find shade outside the gate.

The road was bordered by tall hedges, backed by leafy trees. He was, however, obliged to cross an upland meadow before he reached the fence that on this side bordered the wood. Once through a little gate in the fence, Stern drew a long breath, and smiled happily as he looked round him. The trees were not huge, but they were larger than the gardener had led him to expect, and Stern was more accustomed to French than to English woods. As he strolled in among the trees the atmosphere took a mysterious green tint that baffled the sunshine where it strove to force an entrance. It was a beechwood, with here and there a group of oaks. The ground was a rich red, and more than once an immature acorn dropped at his feet. A sudden flash of blue among the leaves, and then a jarring noise ; but the wood was singularly quiet, the squirrels even were taking a siesta.

Richard Stern sat down between two contorted, moss-grown roots at the foot of a beech tree ; the place seemed to him given up to silence. He gave a sigh of pleasure at his escape from the oppressive gloom within, and the glare outside the Manor House. His expression was delightful, his bright blue eyes as clear as a boy's : his mouth, though it suggested a certain laziness, expressed both kindness and refinement ; he was not hand some, but his face was singularly attractive. ' I can't wonder,' he thought, ' that Miles has kept away. That dark neglected place must be TJie Story of Lois 8 most depressing to such a bright fellow as he is. What a change after Paris ! I expect he is only here now to settle local business with his agent' Stern told himself that if he owned such a place, and could not afford to keep it up, he should let it to strangers.

While he sat musing, he remembered the curse which tradition said was attached to his friend's house. ' Perhaps no one would take it : they say it never has gone straight from father to son since the direct heir was murdered in one of the bed chambers, and yet nowadays such ideas are laughed at.' The soft, green light, the warm, almost close atmosphere, the resinous fragrance from clumps of pines scattered at intervals among the beech trees, brought a peaceful sense of rest to the dreamy wanderer ; he leaned back against the grey-green beech trunk, and began to think out a poem on the legend of Brinsby Manor House. . . . He started. He had not been sound asleep, and yet it seemed to him that the sharp breaking of a twig had suddenly wakened him. Then came the sound of a voice, apparently reciting poetry.

He listened, with head bent forward — it was a strange sound to hear in a wood. Stern had hoped that the green interlaced boughs would effectually dull any village noises. So they had ; this was not a village noise that had roused him from his dreaming. Yes, a full young voice was reciting Shakespeare, declaiming in rich tones, ' The quality of mercy is not strained,' and so on, to the end of Portia's speech. The tone was deep and musical, the enunciation sounded refined, but to this critical listener the voice itself was not well produced. ' How splendid it is so far,' he said to himself. ' If one could help to cultivate a voice like that, one would benefit the world.' He thought the voice belonged to a girl, yet now and again the singularly fearless tone made him doubtful. He rose from his comfortable nest and began to look about him.

His rather short figure, his clothes cut in the fashion, his clean-shaven face, made him seem out of place in the romantic wood, filled this June afternoon with changing lights and shadows, as the light breeze outside it stirred the leaves. He stood listening as the musical voice once more repeated the famous words, — ' In the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation.' A deep sigh followed, and at this Richard Stern's inaction left him ; he pushed apart the branches and peered forward. The leafage was too full, the interlacing twigs, one behind another, made too dense a perspective of greenery for his eyes to penetrate. He moved cautiously forward, lest he should disturb the speaker and also damage his clothes. At last a glimmer of white showed at some little distance, the voice sounded close by as it repeated the opening phrase, and seemed to draw their fullest meaning from the words.

Another deep sigh ended them. Stern's curiosity had become impatient. He vigorously pushed aside the obstructing branches, took a step forward without looking where he was going, and sank knee-deep in a dry ditch which at this point crossed the wood. His fall made a crashing noise, the ditch being io The Story of Lois half filled with dry twigs and leaves. Trying to save himself, he tore down a clinging mass of wild rose and honeysuckle, ragged fragments of what had once been a hedge beside the ditch. While he freed himself from the briars there was silence, then the clear musical voice said, — ' Can I help you ? I am afraid you are hurt ? ' There was laughter in the voice, and Stern looked up as he stepped out of the pitfall. At sight of the figure before him he instinctively bowed. He saw that the reciter was a tall girl, dressed in a shabby white serge frock ; she looked about nineteen ; her figure was fully developed — it might one day become heavy, but it now showed lovely curves.

She looked singularly distinguished. Stern had a habit of studying faces, and he thought he had rarely seen so much power in a woman's eyes. They were dark grey, looking still darker from heavy black lashes. The eyebrows were also black, a vivid contrast against the ivory white of her forehead ; her nose was straight but insignificant, except that the nostrils were full of seeling ; her mouth was wide, and her very red lips were slightly thick. The broad forehead, with heavy, dusky hair clustered low on it, was like that of some old Roman bust, and a certain squareness of chin harmonised with this re semblance. It was a face that promised to be rarely beautiful, just now it rather lacked expression. Richard Stern was so vividly impressed by this apparition that he did not answer as quickly as the girl expected. ' You are hurt, then ? ' She stretched out a shapely hand to him as though she thought he needed support. ' I beg your pardon.

Thank you, I am all right, except that I have lost my hat ; I ought to have seen where I was going. Perhaps,' he smiled genially, 'you were to blame for that?' The girl raised her head and looked straight into his eyes. There was so much dignity in her attitude that, in spite of her gipsy-like appearance, he felt constrained to treat her with deference. She was bare headed, and her hair was roughened as though the briars had caught it ; her white serge gown was frayed, but the loose sleeves showed dimpled and well-formed hands and wrists. The gown fell straight to her feet from the yoke at her shoulders, and was girt round her waist by a belt of the same stuff, fastened by two coiled snakes cut in green lava. It was an affected gown, but it suited her. Stern told himself that a more conventional costume would not have harmonised with her striking face and figure. ' Pardon me ; I scarcely see how I could have caused your fall.' She spoke coldly, and her tone was slightly contemptuous. ' This way.

I was so interested in listening to your recitation that I did not look ahead, and so stumbled into the ditch,' he laughed. ' May I ask if you have been taught to recite? you do it very well.' The girl stared at him, then she also laughed. ' No ; I've taught myself. I suppose you hold the modern idea that everything must be taught, and that everything can be learned ? I am quite old-fashioned ; I believe in natural gifts more than in teaching. I'm sure Nature still gives genius and imagination, and all the other fine things, to some people.' Her pale skin showed a lovely tinge of bloom as she went on, excited by her TJie Story of Lois 12 own impulsive words. ' I believe — ' She stopped. ' But I'm talking nonsense, and boring you ? You cannot care to listen to my crude notions.' She stooped, raised her hat and a book from the ground, then said, ' Good day,' and bowed to him. ' Please stay a moment,' he said earnestly. ' May I justify myself?' She had begun to move away ; now she stopped and looked at him. ' I absolutely reverence genius,' he went on, ' and when I have found the rare gift, believe me, I have tried to foster it' He looked earnestly at her, and he saw her dark eyes flash with feeling. ' Do — do you mean that if you recognised a gift in anyone you would acknowledge it and help the person to — ' She hesitated, and stood silent, while a rosy flush spread over her face.

Stern smiled at himself; the girl's excitement fascinated him. ' That must depend on the nature of the gift,' he said. ' My power to help is limited ; I could not help a gift with which I have not power to sym pathise — an engineering genius, for instance, or a scientist. I can deeply admire a poet or a painter, but I have not power to help that kind of gift to develop.' While she listened, the girl put her hand on her bosom to quiet her heart throbs — for the first time in her life light was shining in on the perplexity that troubled her. She believed that this stranger, who seemed to her to be middle-aged and sensible, had the special experience for which she had longed ; she believed that he knew about acting, and could tell her whether she was justified in cherishing her secret hope. ' I — I wonder what sort of gift you could help ?

Please do not think me inquisitive.' Her voice sounded pathetic. She had become timid ; she divined that her companion was a gentleman, and, although she despised class dis tinctions, she instinctively wished to show herself his equal. The boldness of her question alarmed her. ' There is nothing so commonplace as curio sity,' she thought, and she hung her grand head a little. ' Do you really wish to know ? ' He was laughing at himself; he felt already so full of sympathy for this strange girl that he had to check a sudden impulse to tell her that he sympathised with players because he had once tried to become an actor. The lines on his forehead had knitted into a sort of horse-shoe. ' Please don't be vexed with me,' the strange girl said gently, almost humbly. ' You would not mind my asking, if you knew me ; no one else minds my queer ways.' She sighed, then with sudden, child-like confidence, ' I'm Lois — Lois Ercott.

My father lives near here, in that climber covered house with the pretty garden beyond the brook ; you know it, don't you ?' Her simplicity delighted him. ' I have not seen the village,' he said, smiling. ' I only came down to the Manor House last night. My name is Stern.' Lois smiled with a sense of relief; she felt that she was being treated like a grown-up woman. Evidently her step-mother's fear that no one would ever consider her ' grown-up ' was un founded. ' I fancied Sir Miles Caversham had gone away again,' she said. ' The Brinsby people made such a fuss at his home-coming, I made sure they had frightened him off.' ' Were there grand doings, then ? ' 'All sorts of things, but only half ripe. He came a week before he was expected, and nothing was ready. I was not at home.' He looked amused. ' Perhaps you meant to take part in the welcome ? ' ' Of course.

I had planned the triumphal arch, and explained it to the carpenter. I meant to stand beside it, and to recite an ode which I found in an old book ; but we did not know he was coming that day, and we had gone away. I believe the welcome was a complete fiasco, though the carpenter will not own it : that sort of man is never wrong in his own eyes.' 'Ah, no doubt your absence spoiled the effect.' The twinkle in his kind eyes made her uneasy ; she had lived too secluded a life to distrust others, but she believed that this stranger was laughing at her. ' I'm not vain enough to think so, but the fiasco does not matter. Sir Miles seems not to care about knowing his neighbours ; he has lived so much abroad, you see, that the poor man is ignorant in regard to English ways.' ' I live abroad, and I know Sir Miles very well ; he is a charming fellow, and he likes English people, though, perhaps, he prefers London to the country.

You must own that the old Manor House is very gloomy.' ' I hardly know it. I have only driven through Brinsby, for my father does not like me to go into the village. I wonder — ' Lois paused, ashamed of her curiosity. ' Our gardener says Sir Miles looks like a prince. Well, that has no meaning to me. I never saw a prince ; I have not seen anything,' she ended, with supreme disgust. 'You have seen London, I suppose?' She shook her head. ' When I was at school, I used to pass through London on my way. I have had waitings at Lon don stations ; that's all I know about it. I've lived in this dull little place since I left school, and I hate it. I cannot wonder if Sir Miles hates it too.' ' Then it is for amusement that you come to the wood and repeat Shakespeare?' She stared at him, as though she questioned his meaning. ' Do I ?

Is it for amusement, I wonder? I am often puzzled about it. It happens like this. All at once I feel I must come here. I begin to recite, as I call it, and then I feel happy ; all the worries and wretched things I have been fretting about fly up into the trees, and I am filled with peace.' She stopped. ' I beg your pardon ; do I not bore you ? ' Stern had become greatly interested. It was delightful to watch the change of expression in her now animated face, and to listen to her musical voice. She seemed to him like some rare blossom ; he had never seen anyone like her. ' On the contrary, I am greatly interested. While I listened to you, I was wondering whether you had ever wished to become an actress ? ' Lois blushed. His direct look of question made her feel timid, for he had guessed at her most secret hope.

Then it flashed upon her that this was an opportunity sent her. She had heard her father say that failure in life was usually due to over modesty and want of push, and that success chiefly depended on readiness to seize opportunity when it presented itself. She did not often agree with her father's ideas, but she saw that a chance was now given to her. She determined to win this stranger's help. She looked gratefully at him as she answered, — ' Yes, you have guessed right. Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be an actress. No one takes any interest in my wish except a school friend. My brother knows about it, but he only laughs at me.' Her voice was sad as she ended. ' Well, why should you not become an actress, supposing that you really have a gift for the stage ? ' He said this in a matter-of-course voice, and Lois felt quieted and happy.

Here was a man who looked wise, and as if he knew the ways of the world. There was nothing singular or fan tastic about him, and he had not laughed at her hopes. ' You see, my father would never hear of such a thing.' Stern looked grave. ' Ah ! that is a serious obstacle. Have you con sulted your father about this?' The girl moved her shoulders restlessly. ' It would be useless.' ' Let me advise you,' he went on. ' Speak out frankly to your father ; ask him to hear you repeat Portia's speech. I believe that, unless you are greatly needed at home, he will very likely, after a time, permit you to begin the needful trainino-.' He saw her bright eyes flash with impatience. ' Remember the old saying,' he added, ' " Everything comes to those who know how to wait." Success in any walk of life is as often as not the result of painstaking patience.' He smiled kindly at her. ' You can practise this gift of patience while you wait' B

Chapter II Father And Daughter

Richard Stern and Lois Ercott had been too deeply interested to notice the sound of approach ing footsteps. Now an irritable voice startled them. ' What are you doing here, Lois ? ' The tall, nervous-looking man, who came up, flushed as he went on, ' I do not wish my daughter to talk to strangers, sir.' He turned to Lois, adding in a fretful tone, ' Go home, go home at once, child, and stay there till I join you.' Lois did not move. She looked startled and vexed ; she seemed to grow taller as she stared at her father. ' I beg your pardon, sir,' Stern said. ' I am sorry to have annoyed you. I am staying at the Manor House, and Sir Miles Caversham will give you any information you may want about me. My name is Stern. I have the honour to wish you good morning.' He raised his hat, smiled at Lois, and left the father and daughter together.

Mr Ercott stood thinking. Presently he said, ' Come, Lois.' The father and daughter made a striking con trast as they walked silently out of the wood. The girl full of health and vigorous grace, instinct with lS life and vivacity ; the man beside her, rigid, angular and grey-haired before his time. Yet, in spite of this token of age, his look suggested callowness. He was clean shaved, except for a drooping grey moustache ; his nose projected like the beak of an eagle over his loose, unclosed lips ; in his pale blue eyes was the affrighted expression of one who has seen something so terrible that he cannot clear his retina from the alarming impress ; his head was erect and slightly thrown back ; his neck looked wooden. Robert Ercott had spent some time in India as an army chaplain. He had retired a few years ago, broken down, it was said, by the loss of his wife and the effectsof the climate.

George and Lois, his two children, had been sent to England years earlier for education. George had been at school, and Lois lived with her father's sister. News of this sister's death greeted the un happy widower on his return, and made him still more lonely and helpless. He could not live alone with Lois — a restless, turbulent girl of twelve, bent on asserting and amusing herself. He felt utterly out of sympathy with this young daughter, who had so ardently looked forward to his return. Ercott always decided quickly. He found a good school for Lois, and went down to stay with an old college friend, then rector of the village of Brinsby. Ercott's eyes had suffered in India ; he persuaded himself that it was useless to pursue his calling. This resolution made him an idle man. He asked his friend to give him a temporary home in his pleasant Rectory till he could find a house to suit him, and by the time the climber-covered cottage, he fancied, was vacant, Ercott found himselfengaged to marry Miss Agatha Bushnell, who had come to Brinsby to spend a few weeks with her cousin, the rector, and his mother.

Miss Bushnell was forty. She had a good income, and was very fair and comely ; and when Mr Ercott proposed to rent the cottage, she bought it and the land that belonged to it. The Brinsby people said Ercott was a lucky man to have found a good housekeeper who could bring grist to the mill ; certainly the fair, gossiping woman made a happy looking wife and an indulgent step-mother. Robert Ercott's melancholy soon came back to him. The villagers observed that he went off for long walks by himself. The new rector, a stranger to the place, was disposed to be grateful to Mrs Ercott when she came bustling to the Parsonage, in which she had so often stayed, and offered her help with the villagers. She soon had plenty to do, and she probably saw as much of her silent husband as she required. Mrs Ercott greatly admired Lois, though she could not understand her.