Lindsay's Girl. A novel

Front matter

A THE "GREENBACK SERIES" POPULAR 3)6 NOVELS Bv WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS. (Crown 8vo, Cloth.) Uniform with " Lindsay's Girl." i. LOUIS DRAYCOTT. By Mrs. Leith Adams, and Edition. .. GEOFFREY STIRLING. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 5th Edition. 3 BONNIE KATE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 2nd Edition. 4 A NEW OTHELLO. By Hon. 1za Duffus Hardy. 2nd Ed. 5! THE MAID OF LONDON BRIDGE. By Somerville Gibney. 3rd Edition. 6 EVELINE WELLWOOD. By Major Norris Paul. 2nd Ed. 7. OLD LATTIMER'S LEGACY. By J. S. Fletcher. 2nd Ed. 8. THAT LITTLE GIRL. By Curtis Yorke. 51I1 Edition. 9. DUDLEY. By Curtis Yorke. 4th Edition. 10. THE WILD RUTHVENS. By Curtis Yorke. 5th Edition. 11. THE BROWN PORTMANTEAU, and other Stories. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 12. HUSH ! By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. 13. ONCE! By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 14.

A ROMANCE OF MODERN LONDON. By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. 15. HIS HEART TO WIN. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 16. DARRELL CHEVASNEY. By Curtis Yorke. 17. BETWEEN THE SILENCES. By Curtis Yorke. 18. THE PEYTON ROMANCE. By Mrs. Leith Aoams. 3rd Ed. 19 THE GOLDEN MILESTONE. By Scott Graham. 3rd Ed. 20. A RECORD OF DISCORDS. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 21. "CHERRY RIPE!" By Helen Mathers. 8th Edition. 22. STORY OF A SIN. By Helen Mathers. 5th Edition. 23. EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. (Sequel.) By Helen Mathers. 4th Ed. 24 JOCK O' HAZELGREEN. By Helen Mathers. 4th Ed. 25. MY LADY GREEN SLEEVES. By Helen Mathers. 6th Ed. 26. FOUND OUT. By Helen Mathers. 103rd Thousand. 27. THE MEDLICOl'TS. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 28. THE HEART OF A MYSTERY. By T. W. Speight. 29. MAN PROPOSES. By iMrs. A. Phillips. 2nd Edition. 30.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS. By Mrs. E. Newman. Shortly. 31. ALLANSON'S LITTLE WOMAN. By Eastwood Kidson. Shortly. 32. LINDSVY'S GIRL. By Mrs. Herbert Martin. 33. WRONGLY CONDEMNED. By Mrs. Bagot Harte, Author of " Bianca," &c. 34. THE THIRTEENTH BRYDAIN. By Margaret Moule,-i Author of " Wingrove's Ways," "Dick's Wife," "Miss I J Maidment," &c. ! •* 35. THROUGH ANOTHER MAN'S EYES. By Eleanor | g Holmes. I JJ 36. MRS. WYLDE. By Linda Gardiner. i> 37. A PRINCE OF COMO. By E.M.Davy. 2nd Edition. 38. RUTH FARMER. By Agnes Makchbank. [Tlwusand. 39. THE LOVELY MALINCOURT. By Helen Mathers. Sixth 40. A GARRISON ROMANCE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 3rd Ed. 41. HARUM SCARUM. By Esme Stuart. Shortly. 42. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE. By Scott Graham. Shortly. 43. THE MAN IN THE CHECK SUIT. By F. W. H. Delf. {Shortly. OTHERS IN PREPARATION.

Chapter I. Firwood

It was a breezy, crisp October day, the sky a delicious blue, lightly flecked with flying cloudlets, the sun full of a mellow, unoppressive warmth; the sides of the clean white roads golden and brown with fallen leaves, which the children love to kick in search of hidden beech-nuts, horse-chestnuts, and other treasures. To live was a delight on such a day — at least, so Valentine Lindsay thought as she galloped home beside her father, after a long ride on her bay mare Jess, her young heart making gay music to the rhythm of the ringing hoofs on the highway. " Race you to the lodge gates, daddy ! " she cried, and struck Jess lightly with her gold-headed whip. Mr. Lindsay, however, declined the challenge, smiling. He allowed his big grey hunter to drop a little behind, and followed his daughter's lead at a more leisurely pace, till he also turned in at the oaken gate where the small rustic lodge stood, that admitted to the drive leading to the front door of the solid red-brick, comfortable-looking house, which had always been Valentine's home.

She drew up smartly at the door, and without waiting for any help, slid in a moment on to the ground from her saddle. As she did so, she became aware that a familiar figure was ad vancing to greet, not being in time to aid her. She hailed him in her loud, clear, frank voice, with cordial nod and gesture : " Hullo, St. George ! Have you come down ? That's right. In time for my birthday " "Your birthday, Val?" " Yes. Don't say you had forgotten, mean thing, and not brought me anything ! How dare you not remember that the 1 2th (that's to-morrow) is my nineteenth birthday! Dad has promised to take me up to town for a spree, and we shall stop at the Mdtropole — I've never been in a big hotel in London yet. AVe've taken tickets for the St. James'." " Well, I'm sorry, Val, but I had forgotten. I must get you something to-morrow, when you come up.

You shall choose for yourself in Regent Street." " Then I'll forgive you — though it was horrid of you to want to be reminded of such an event ! " The groom had come up, and with a pat and caress Valen tine parted for the moment with her favourite Jess. She stood on the step, beside Lord St George, waiting for her father, who had just come in sight ; and so standing, it was evident that the girl overtopped the man by an inch or two. In her habit, slim and upright as one of the young firs in the park, she looked much taller than he ; but every inch tells in a woman. In point of fact Valentine was five feet nine, and St. George only a fraction over five feet seven. She was not a pretty girl, but she would have made a very good-looking boy, and he was almost an ugly man. He had a stooping, rather awkward figure, stiff, dark hair, a little touched with grey, a sallow complexion, and irregular, kindly, and humorous features.

His only claims to beauty were a pair of dark-blue eyes of the dreamy, short-sighted kind, with something in them tender and pathetic, and large, but even, white teeth. His slender and well-shaped hands were full of nervous little tricks, such as twiddling the string of his pince-nez, playing with watch or watch-chain, or fingering any object near. If nothing else offered, he was apt to give his own hair a comical pull, as if to remind himself he was awake. Such was the exterior (very carelessly attired) of George St. George, a man who had — what he himself considered — the misfortune to be the son and heir of an earl, and who would have much preferred to have been born one of the people, for he was an advanced Radical, steeped to the lips in that modern passion for humanity, which is so characteristic of our day.

He went forward to shake hands with the master of Firwood, Stuart Lindsay, with the cordiality of a long and strong friend ship, as he threw himself off from his hunter close to the others. St. George was only five and thirty ; Mr. Lindsay, on the FIRWOOD. 9 wrong side of fifty, looking older than that ; but it was plain that there was entire equality between them. Neither had any thing to learn of the other, and they had been friends since St. George was an Oxford undergraduate, whom Lindsay rescued, by a good-natured tour deforce, from a very serious mess. " Oh, you have come, then ! " Mr. Lindsay said, keeping his hand on him as they turned towards the house; " that's all right. I thought you were deep in slumming or fadding in some of your haunts. Deuced glad to see you, Georgy ; you can go up with us to-morrow.

Has Val told you she's bothered me into having a lark with her, in honour of her birthday ? As if there were anything to make merry over, in having a troublesome Tomboy grow up into a miserable imitation of a young lady ! " He turned his face, with a fond smile that needed no honeyed words, towards the girl. It was plain that Mr. Lindsay idolized this tall, over-slender, boyish-looking lassie, who had tossed off her stiff hat because it pressed a little on her fore head, and showed a cropped head, thick with chestnut curls. Some six months ago Valentine had had a sharp attack of typhoid fever, which had necessitated shaving, and her hair had not yet grown to proper womanly length ; nor had her shape yet lost the angles which the extreme emaciation of the disease had brought into evidence. The angles were not becoming, but the short hair was : it suited the frank impertinence of her small retrousse nose, the boyish freedom of her dancing, hazel eyes, the wide, laughing mouth, with its teeth white as nut kernels, and the prominent, cleft chin posed saucily on a long, slira throat.

Valentine was burnt by the summer sun to a clear and wholesome brown, that matched her eyes and hair well enough. She had not a claim to regular beauty ; everything about her was faulty, bizarre, or incomplete; yet her father declared he would not have a blemish altered or an irregularity removed, and that, as she was, his Val was piquante, fascinating, altogether a darling, whose naughtiness was but a charm the more. But, then, he had spoilt her to the top of her bent since she was a toddler of two. Perhaps her odd likeness, in unlikeness to himself, made him more alive to her charms. It was curious to be unable to deny or not to see this similarity, although Mr. Lindsay was a tall, dignified, finely built man, with a handsome face, that showed the deep and obvious traces of a jeunesse oragatse.

Nothing could be farther removed, one would think, than the aspect of a man who has lived high, drank deep, indulged in every kind of dissipation, till exhaustion and satiety have seized on appetite, and a young, frank, untried, uncultivated girl, who for nineteen years has led a wild, gay, innocent country life, careless and free as a bird in summer. Yet the subtle and curious stamp of close kinship was on both. Yes ; and a kinship, not only of body, but of soul. As they walked Valentine cast her long, thin arm carelessly on to her father's broad shoulder. St. George was on her other side, and she turned to talk to him in her loud young voice, careless of interrupting the father who often abused her in play, but had never seriously found fault with her in her life. St. George had not been at Firwood for a month — a long time for him — and she had interesting news to give him of the collie pups, the piping bullfinch, the follies of the last new curate, and so on.

St. George was as apt to listen indulgently as her father. She declared herself dying for tea, which was ready for them in the library — -a mannish-looking room, which both she and her father preferred to the others. She flung herself anyhow on to her own particular wicker chair before the Japanese table, and proceeded hastily and with some recklessness to heap in sugar and to pour out tea. Of course she forgot St. George's inability to drink sweetened tea, as she always did, and had to fish out two large lumps in a hurry, even then leaving enough unpleasant flavour in the beverage for his palate to cause him to make faces, and bolt it with unusual speed in order to get some pleasure out of his second cup. Mr. Lindsay's tastes were well enough known to his domestics. He had his little tray of whisky and soda with a special sort of biscuit, and did not condescend to the feminine luxury of tea.

" I'm glad St. George likes tea, and not that stuff of yours," Valentine said, looking approvingly at her friend's quickly emptied cup. " I like a man to keep me company. How any one can choose to drink smoky, salty, strong water that gets up one's nose " She curled up the feature in question with an air of disgust. " Slops agree with girls and philanthropists," Mr. Lindsay answered. "I don't wish to see you drinking whisky, Val, in preference to tea, though Miss Kennedy, the daughter of the Master of the Hounds, tips off her glass like any man. And Georgy's a faddist— a real Saint George, you know. Tea suits him." St. George did not seem at all moved by his friend's FIRWOOD. 11 sarcasms. He smiled calmly, and continued to enjoy his unsugared tea, consuming cup after cup with nonchalance, though each, under Valentine's rather injudicious management, grew of paler and still paler complexion.

" I've had to go to Easton," he said, apropos of nothing, after a short silence. " Have you ? And how were your dear relations ? As charming as ever, and charmed to see the beloved prodigal ? " Mr. Lindsay lit a fine cigar as he spoke, watching his friend's expression with lazy amusement. "Oh, quite as usual, in every respect Normally grumpy, normally and consistently in opposition to everything I did or said. That's to say, they were at first. I happened to fall in with some scheme of the old man's, to diminish my revenue in future and increase young Ray's ; so he grew quite amiable, and my lady relented. She actually promised that Ray should stay with me." " What do you want the spoilt brat for? " " Oh, I rather like him, you know. He's not altogether spoilt. I think he's a plucky kid, and his manly airs are amusing.

I hope my lady will make up her mind to let him go to Eton after Christmas. It is rich to see her look first at me, then at him, and sigh. She might just as well say out what's in her mind. AVhat a shame it is of Providence to have made me the son of the first wife, when her beautiful Ray mond would look the part so infinitely better ! But if I'd the grace to depart this life, I'm sure she would send a magnificent wreath to lay on my untimely tomb." "Ay, if you departed without leaving lawful issue," Mr. Lindsay returned. " That's Lady Easton's conception of your mission in life, my boy." " Take care she does not poison you, or throw you down a well, like Lady Audley," Val put in. " I always fancy Lady Easton is like one of Miss Braddon's beautiful fiends." "Unfortunately the world isn't as exciting as a three vol. novel."

" I don't know," Mr. Lindsay said, rather thoughtfully. " I think society holds a good many thrilling stories under its surface. But Lady Easton will never be a Lady Audley. It's easier to wish you dead — perhaps even prepare a little care fully worded request to her Maker to that effect in her regular church-going — than to take any steps that might compromise her dignity, and lead to awkward consequences." " I don't believe anybody is quite vile enough to wish another person dead," Valentine said with vehement emphasis. So intense was her vitality, her passion for life, that she never could utter the word dead without a slight shiver. St. George looked at her a little wistfully. Her father uttered a hard, sarcastic laugh. " Oh, you poor innocent ! How little you know of the ways of this wicked world !

If a wish could kill — how long should / survive, for instance, or you, Georgy — eh ? " " Don't, daddy," she cried with petulant anger in her voice, and in the swift down-dropping frown on her smooth fore head. " I hate to hear you talk so." " AVell, then, I won't, my pet," he said softly and soothingly in an instant ; " too bad to vex the nineteen-year-older, isn't it? Did Lady Easton sneer about all your pretty schemes, or do you manage to keep them from her, George ?" " As much as I can. She's a vague idea I'm wasting my substance on ' those vile Socialists and Anarchists,' but it is vague. I don't suppose she'd be much surprised to find I was the head of a Dynamite Club." " Well, I don't generally agree with her ladyship, but I must own I think you're making a fool of yourself, Georgy.

Let the canaille alone ; they won't rise ; they don't care to rise ; they only want their beef and beer at your expense ; they bother your life out with impossible hopes and constant vexa tions. Why should you devote yourself to people simply because they are insolent, filthy, ignorant, and generally degraded ? " "They're not, as a rule. They're only miserable," St George answered quietly. " Well, you can't make them happy ; you only lose your own happiness by attempting it. I can't see the attraction of the ' submerged tenth.' " " They're no worse than the upper tenth, as far as I see," St. George said, with some meaning in his tone. Lindsay laughed. "Very likely not, except in being less clean and not so agreeable externally. But I've a prejudice in favour ofthe well-washed, clean-linened, pleasant-spoken wicked nesses of the world."

Valentine had left the tea-table, and taking the uneaten half of the Madeira cake, was bent on giving it to her mare Jess, before she went upstairs to change her habit. She threw her skirt over her arm, put on a picturesque red cap, and went off, whistling gaily like a boy, in the direction of the stables.

Chapter II. Valentine

at home. Valentine Lindsay paused a moment outside the house, as she had a habit of doing, just to look about her, and to take in the old, ever-new pleasure, which, though so quiet and everyday a one, was keen as all her joys were — the pleasure of breathing the open country air and filling her eyes with the familiar sight of her home. The bright, glancing hazel eyes had certainly a pleasant prospect reflected in them. Firwood was not a very large or stately place, the house was neither splendid nor picturesque, only a warm, comfortable, roomy red-brick mansion, flanked and backed by the dark green of fir-trees. The small park or large paddock, which began at the invisible paling and ditch which bounded the well-kept, brilliant flower garden, went rolling its green turf away down to a wood of various trees, on which mother Nature had lavished all the richest, softest, clearest autumnal tints on her palette.

Far away was a line of grey blue hills, low Surrey hills, suggestive of sweet, English, home-like beauty. Valentine had never known another home, and no girl had had a happier. Except for a couple of years spent in a school at Lausanne, where she learnt all she knew of the world — in truth not much — she had never left Firwood. She had grown up in the open — hearty, healthy, wild, free as a bird, her father's pet and darling, her old nurse's fledgling, well waited on and served by the quiet, civil, reticent servants, who had learnt never to presume on her freedom, or their master's displeasure would follow. Her friends were not those of most young English girls, but Valentine did not know how unusual they were. Except for her old nurse, a former governess, and one or two decent village matrons, she hardly knew a woman, but she never missed that knowledge.

Like the servant lass in " Cranford," Val " liked lads best." She was satisfied with her father, St George, and one or two other middle-aged gentlemen who came and went, smoked, played billiards, chaffed Mr. Lindsay, and drank his historic wine. They were all " awfully kind " to her ; she was a pet and plaything with them all, except St George, who was different somehow, kinder yet less kind, who never romped, but whom she confided in as she did in none other but her " daddy." And she had the horses : her old pony Puck, whom she had grown too big to ride, who was leading his last years in luxurious indolence, and kicking up his heels in the park as he chose ; her bay mare Jess, her pet Alderney Dido, her pug Chuffy, her collie and the puppies, her whistling bullfinch and tame jackdaw, her cocks and hens.

AVhat need had a girl of other and better friends? She had never sworn eternal friendships with her schoolmates, and they had not visited her. No woman or young maid ever stayed with Val at Firwood, and she never troubled her head for any reason why. Till she went to school she had a daily governess — a plain, elderly, meek soul, over whom she tyrannized, but was fond of, and still visited in her little cottage in the village of Elsworth, where the railway station was, a mile away. She envied no girl her mother, sister, friend. Daddy was quite enough for her. Mr. Lindsay and his daughter were on terms of easy equality, of laughing, careless familiarity ; beneath this surface lay on A^alentine's side a passionate and exacting love ; on her father's, the deepest and purest feeling of a selfish and dissolute life.

Valentine only stayed a few moments to look at the rich ness of the autumn foliage where the low sun struck out all its colours, and then went briskly with her light long steps towards the courtyard, where were the stables and the quarters of the coachman and grooms. The stable was beautifully arranged, new, luxuriously appointed for its inmates, clean and fresh as any lady's drawing-room. Mr. Lindsay was an easy master in most respects, and a lavishly generous one ; but he was a martinet on certain points, and ever}' man about the place knew it was as much as a good place was worth to disregard his orders. Valentine went from one box to another to say a word or two and give a careless touch and caress to every horse ; but she stayed much longer with her own particular pet Jess. As VALENTINE AT HOME. 15 she leant against the shining neck, smoothing and kissing the satin skin, whilst Jess munched her cake, the coarse loud voice of a helper outside, under the little window close to which she stood, drew her attention, as she heard her own name.

Valentine threw back her head and listened. " What ! AVon't Miss Valentine come in for the place, then, when old Lindsay pops off? " "Of course not, you fool. How should she? All the property goes to Mr. Marmaduke, in course, and a pretty kick up and shine there'll be then, if all they say's true." Valentine started away from Jess and out of the stable with a sudden burning of face and angry pain, for which she could not account. She was enraged with herself for caring what a low, common stable-boy said ; yet the words stuck to her and pricked like a stray bramble. "When old Lindsay pops off." Something in the phrase was hateful, disgusting, hurt like a stone flung in her face. But of course those creatures talked so amongst themselves ! AVhy should they care about the master that paid and fed them?

That was all he was to them — only a paymaster; they would go to another as easily as the pig turns from the empty trough to the full one. Mr. Lindsay had given his own contempt of the " lower orders " to his daughter. But what did those other words mean ? Valentine had never — not for a moment — speculated, her mind had never so much as glanced on any possibility of events after that terrible and impossible one — her father's death. After that — the deluge — anything ! Sackcloth and ashes, the bread and water of affliction ! But if so terrific a thing could happen, and she live on, why should it not be as her father's only child, as owner and mistress of her father's home? And one man jeered at the other for even supposing it ! AVho was " Mr. Marmaduke ? " She made a violent, passionate effort to shake off even the recollection of the few words she had overheard ; and this young Hedonist was generally pretty successful in ridding herself of any stray, unpleasant thought; yet she considered that she would ask some one — St George, perhaps, who answered all her queries with elaborate conscientiousness — who this " Marmaduke " they talked of might be.

She tore off, meanwhile, by way of diverting her mind, to the cosy nook where the collie and her puppies lived. The pug went snorting after her to say something rude to Maggie about her children, as he had a nasty knack of doing whenever Val made him jealous of those trembling little idiots in the straw. Chuffy was a very insolent and slightly vulgar animal. Valentine had often occasion to abuse him; but he had a sense of humour, in which gentle, loving, rather weakly sentimental Maggie was deficient. Valentine was still a little perturbed, not quite herself, when she had paid all her visits and gone in to change her hot clinging habit for a dinner gown. A slight frown lurked on her forehead ; she had not the gay insouciance of bearing which was her usual strongest characteristic. How dared the helper speak of " Old Lindsay popping off"?

She did not read a great deal, and only, I am sorry to say, the lightest and most sensational of novels, generally finding her own activities, schemes, and amusements more interesting ; but she snatched up a Mudie book now to take to her room and read all the time her maid was brushing her hair and fastening her frock, instead of gossiping about the affairs of the village, as usual. AVhen she had her white dress and yellow ribbons on, and Parkes had clasped a string of amber beads round the smooth, thin, brown neck, she just gave herself a glance. "This thing doesn't suit me — I look ugly," she said dis contentedly. "I'm so brown and scraggy." " Oh, miss, you're filling out ; and when you get a little more flesh you'll be beautifully made — it's only a bit fatter you need to be; and as to brown, there ain't a spot or roughness on your neck or arms anywhere, and such nice little wrists and throat !

The master says you're just made like a wood nymph or a young Diana." The hazel eyes began to smile again. Aralentine had an appetite for praise and admiration, as well as a love of being loved. But she answered brusquely enough — "Stuff! I tell you I look ugly. I wish I were like that pretty new wife of young AVoodroffe that I saw in church. She's like strawberries and cream, and looks good to eat. I think I'd rather know her than not." Parkes said nothing, but thought a good deal. She knew that it was not Mr. Lindsay's way to cultivate lady acquaint ances for his daughter. Of course the servant's hall had discussed the situation a hundred times, and had settled every point in it. Before dinner Aralentine went into her old nurse's little sitting-room, her own bedroom as a child, as she often did VALENTINE AT HOME. 17 when she was dressed.

Martha was getting old; she had lived with Mr. Lindsay's mother, and still thought of him in her own mind as "Master Stuart." She could do nothing now for her living but sew and make up the commoner garments her child wore ; but Mr. Lindsay would no more have thought of turning her adrift than Val would. Deep-seated and manifold might be his sins, but want of generosity and kindly feeling towards those dependent on him made no part of them. And Martha, who knew all his faults from his wild youth up, kept them in the dark chambers of her old heart ; loved him with an un changing, unjudging affection, and prayed night and morning for the remission of her " dear lad's " sins. She looked up through her great horn-rimmed glasses with a cordial smile on her pleasant old face, mapped with wrinkles, framed by silvery curls, with her neat cap as white as they were, though not as shining.

" Well, darlin', ready, are you ? It ain't gone half-past yet. Sit ye down a bit, and tell me where you've been. A-ridin' with your pa ? AVhere to ? " Valentine sat in her old baby armchair, leaning against the familiar print apron, while Martha pressed the short curls with a fond hand, remarking they were growing thick and nice, after all. The girl told her all the little incidents of the day ; then, with a sudden impulse, said — " Martha, who's ' Mr. Marmaduke ' ? " She felt the knees on which she was leaning start with a sudden tremor. " Mr. Marmaduke ! " the old woman repeated in a helpless kind of way ; then, as Val threw back her head to look keenly and rather suspiciously in her face, she recovered her calm. " I was wondering what you were talking about, dearie. Oh, a relation of your pa's in Scotland.

AA-hat makes you ask?" " I heard some one speak of him. A near relation, Martha ? " " Rather." " I wonder why he never comes here ? But I suppose when dad goes to Scotland he goes to see him ? " " Ay, I dare say. So Lord St. George is come again ? For your birthday, has he ? " " No. He was horrid enough to forget it. But he will go with us to the Metropole, and let me choose a present. AVe're going to have such splendid fun, Martha. First, a regular good shopping and loafing about; then lunch at a restaurant ; to B some entertainment in the afternoon ; then a jolly good dinner, with Neapolitan ices to finish with, and the theatre. After wards, if I can possibly get up any appetite, I'll have an oyster supper. I don't like raw oysters much ; but it's the proper thing, I suppose, to finish up with."