The Duchess Lass

Front matter

Some Opinions of the Press ON The Shuttle of Fate BY CAROLINE MASTERS. Uniform with "The Duchess Lass." The "MANCHESTER GUARDIAN," of December 5, 1895, says:- " We have not, for a long time, read a more interesting and faithful story of Lancashire Life. In telling the story the author shows great insight into the peculiarities of Lancashire character. The sturdy independence, the native wit, the broad humour, the devoted loyalty of some, and the unreasoning hatred of others, are vividly portrayed in the sketches of the different characters, and the tale is varied by touches of genuine pathos." The "MANCHESTER COURIER," of December 4, 1895, says:- "The tale is undoubtedly a powerful one, both in its conception of character and arrangement of incident, whilst the description of the little towns and villages along the bottom of the ' Earnshaw Valley ' is realistic enough to recall more than one such Lancashire scene.

The book is one to be read and enjoyed, and enjoyment will be none the less because some very useful object lessons may be gained from it." The "MANCHESTER CITY NEWS," of January 25, 1896, says:- " Let us at once say that here is a book every Lancashire man should read. It is strong, restrained, natural and homely. The author under stands and sympathises with Lancashire working-folk, and reproduces, with admirable fidelity, the features of our small manufacturing towns. If any Lancashire man wishes to read some first-rate sketches of the life, character, and conditions of his county, he will not be disappointed in the ' Shuttle of Fate.' " The "DAILY CHRONICLE," of December 7, 1895, says :- " Miss Masters tells a good story pleasantly and with artistry sufficient to the undertaking. She does justice to Stephen, and at the same time enters with sympathetic insight into the case of the hands who withstood him.

She knows and loves her Lancashire." The "DAILY TELEGRAPH," of December 20, 1895, says:- "'The Shuttle of Fate' is a clever story, well constructed and brightly told The romance is a powerful one, and thoroughly interesting from beginning to end." OPINIONS OF THE PRESS— continued. The "WORLD," of December 4, 1895, says:— "'The Shuttle of Fate' is a sine and touching story of a strike. There is real dramatic force in it, and Basil Brunton is a man after the heart and the manner of Charles Reade." The "COURT JOURNAL," of December 14, 1895, says :- "Miss Masters in ' The Shuttle of Fate ' has given us a vivid picture of Lancashire mill life. The study of old Stephen, whose determina tion is only equalled by the resolute nature of his men, is a clever piece of character drawing ; whilst that of Basil is also deserving of con siderable praise.

Chapter I. Concerning

A FAMILY. THOSE who speak of fair Kent as the garden of England seem to ignore the bare wind swept tracks of land into which it tapers as it nears the sea. They only take into account the waving corn and shady woods, the luscious strawberry beds and the fairyland hop-grounds ; they never think of those stretches over which the north-east winds rush, still echoing the roar of angry seas, and ladened with the blinding, biting cold of distant ice-fields. They forget the downs, whose outline is oftentime blurred and blotted out by the fringe of that garment of fog which so frequently covers their namesake — ■ the great water — the Downs — near at hand ; downs which, in the dreary darkness of winter, and the bitter cold of spring, are, indeed, a type of dead desolation and hopeless despair. Nevertheless, this less favoured part of a favoured county is not always to be despised.

When the sky is blue andthe sun is bright ; when the sea displays its wondrous shades, and the fishing-boats dance with the little white waves ; when great, hedgeless fields of oats and barley nod their yellow heads before the summer breeze, and lazy sheep nibble the short, brown grass ; when broad patches of poppies show red, like blood, and deep chalk cuttings gleam white, then, in the transforming light of summer, even these undulating downs become things of beauty to those who wander at will along their sunny paths, and breathe deep inspirations from their fresh and balmy air. But these wide Kentish stretches have one great charm of their own, a charm which is never even suspected by the wearied traveller as he glances at their sameness from the window of his train. Here and there, seldom far apart, are to be seen quaint little villages nestling in the hollows ; villages which seem to spring to sight from depths of earth, so suddenly does an unexpected turn reveal them.

Dame Nature, as though repenting of the bareness she has stretched around, lends all her powers to man, in order to make beautiful these works of his hand ; her tall trees spread their sheltering branches overhead, creepers entwine the houses round about, and bright flowers make every cottage garden gay. In one of these little villages, near an old church yard, stands a wide three-storied house, a house bear ing in all its aspects the dignity and peace of age. Up its walls of mellow brick climb great trees of purple westeria, and yellow roses nod their heads as they peer into its wide-opened windows. Between this house, and the quiet country lane it faces, lies an old world garden, with close-cut lawns, and gaily-tinted flowers, and behind it cluster the many stables and farm-buildings of an old manor-house.

Everything around speaks of great and long abiding prosperity ; prosperity which, like the house itself, has come down in unbroken sequence from father to son for many generations. At the time of which we write this prosperity was still unbroken. The hale and hearty squire had stalwart grown-up sons to follow in his footsteps, and fair daughters to uphold the county proverb, " As handsome as a Carroll." But just as one unnecessary dash of seasoning will spoil the most delicately prepared dish, so the presence of one wild, care-for-nothing girl disturbed the peace of this stately house. It is a little difficult, at any time, to take an orphaned niece into the midst of a large and united family. It is difficult when she is a child who can be moulded and fashioned according to the pattern of the household, but it is infinitely worse when the niece has passed into the regions of the " grown-up " ; when she is gifted with that fatal enemy to family peace, a will of her own ; and when, above all, she is the daughter of one who has been for years the notorious black sheep of the house.

In the eyes of his sister-in-law Philip Carroll was exceedingly black ; his marriage had been a blot in the family history ; his wandering, Bohemian life a perpetual thorn. When, therefore, handsome, careless Philip died and left a daughter of fifteen, Lady Flora insisted upon her being sent to school, and until her niece had reached the age of eighteen she had never seen her aunt and cousins, nor the house in which her father had been born. Frank Carroll had been in every respect the opposite to his scapegrace younger brother ; he had lived an easy, humdrum life upon the estate which had come to him from his father ; never short of money, he had always kept well within the bounds of his yearly income ; marrying young, a woman of good family somewhat older than himself, he had brought up sons and daughters with great content ment of mind in the little village in Kent which bore the family name.

He hunted and shot ; bought and sold fat cattle ; appeared with dignity at every accredited show and gala for twenty miles round, and sat in magisterial judgment upon his humble neighbours whenever necessity required, fulfilling, indeed, all the duties which his station in life, as a country squire, entailed upon him. Philip Carroll, on the other hand, had not lived, as he ought to have done, the orthodox life of a younger son ; he had not been careful of his share of the family goods — the share which had come to him as his portion ; he had not lived within his yearly in come, in fact, as he often said, he was never sure at what point this year's allowance melted into next ! And as he took no heed of his brother's example in money matters, so he did not profit by it in things matrimonial.

Perhaps it was that the even dulness and correct respectability of Carroll Court — where he went to be introduced to his new sister-in-law, Lady Flora — were too appalling, or that her long and somewhat prosy discourses upon the desirability of his marrying well were too much of a foretaste of what such a marriage would be ; but certain it is that after this gay young man's visit to his relatives in Kent he went to see an old friend who lived in one of the wildest parts of Lancashire, and in the course of a month or two he sent word to the head of his family at Carroll that he, too, had seen fit to marry a wife. There was much lamentation and distress when the letter came which brought the bad news ; Frank Carroll swore and Lady Flora fainted, — nay, the very roof of the outraged ancestral house seemed to raise itself in horror.

The disgraceful ne'er-do-weel Philip, discontented with his life as it was, had married not a girl of " no family," nor a girl of the middle classes, but a girl who worked in a cotton mill to earn her daily bread ! There was silence between the two families for many years after that ; the silence of injured dignity upon one side, and of a happy-go-lucky carelessness upon the other. The Carrolls of Carroll Court heard from time to time of the family black sheep ; they heard, through outsiders, of Mrs. Philip's good looks, of her quiet ways, and quick adaptation to her husband's mode of life ; they heard, too, of the birth of a little daughter, and, seven years after, Philip himself wrote a heart-broken letter to his brother telling him of the death of the wife whom he loved so well — perhaps because she was the only person who had ever considered him perfection.

After that Frank Carroll kept up a desultory kind of correspondence with his brother, who lived after the loss of his wife a yet more wandering life than he had done before ; at times he wrote from the wild hunting-grounds of the West, sometimes from the old-world cities of the East, again from high latitudes, and again from tropical lands, and, to her aunt's horror and disgust, wherever he was, there was his little daughter with him. It was in vain that John wrote, by his wife's desire, to remonstrate ; Philip only replied that he could not bear to have the child from out of his sight, and, like many another parent, he kept her perpetually in it. So little Frances Carroll lived a wild life of freedom until she reached the age of fifteen ; sometimes going to school for a month or two when they happened to be living in a city ; sometimes learning odds and ends of knowledge from her father or from any good natured friend who chanced to be fishing, shooting, or exploring in his company ; speaking foreign languages as well, if not better than her native tongue, and always, at every available opportunity, being systematically trained in the use of her voice, which, even as a little child's, was the wonder of all who heard it.

But when she was fifteen this happy, uncon ventional life came to a sudden end. Philip Carroll, when on the verge of starting from Brindisi for a long Egyptian tour, was taken suddenly ill, and before his brother could reach him, had gone to join the wife whom he had never ceased lamenting. Frank Carroll, with the good nature which Lady Flora had checked, but not totally subdued, tele graphed home to say that he was bringing his niece Frances back to Carroll with him ; but his wife utterly refused to have her, or even to see her, until she had spent a certain length of time at some fashionable London school, " where she would at least learn to behave herself like other girls." So to school poor Frances went, and whether the three years spent there were more irksome to her or to the teachers under whose charge she was placed it would be hard to tell.

Lady Flora would probably have kept her at school much longer than these three years, but for the unfortunate breaking of a bank which Philip had carelessly left to invest and re-invest his money. But after the smash, her aunt decided that Frances should come to Carroll ; she saw no use in paying between two and three hundred a year for the continued education of a niece who could not defray her own expenses. So when she was past eighteen Frances came to live at Carroll Court, and in spite of the three years' training it was, so far as her aunt and her two girl cousins were concerned, as though a wild colt had been let loose amongst decorous and well-behaved sheep. With her uncle and the boys she soon be came a great favourite ; a girl who could ride, shoot, boat, and dance without fatigue, who was always full of fun and laughter, yet who could upon occasion fly into the most passionate tempers, had all the charms of novelty ; they were never quite sure of what she would do next.

But above all these attractions, she had the gift of her voice, which could hold them spell bound at will ; her voice which could bring tears to the eyes of her uncle, and make even the boys feel, as they said, decidedly choky. Frank Carroll, much to Lady Flora's disgust, insisted upon having his niece treated exactly as his daughters. She was presented, and went through her London seasons just as they did ; wherever they went, she, if she chose, went too. But, greatly to the relief of her aunt and the girls, Frances seldom went anywhere with them, unless it was unavoidable. She would much rather ride and hunt with her uncle, boat and take long excursions with the boys, than pay calls, drive sedately up and down the country lanes in the family landau, or play tennis, in a mild way, in the garden at home.

She did not care for Grace and Mildred ; she distinctly disliked her aunt. It was partly the knowledge that her aunt disliked her which produced this feeling, but in a greater degree it was due to the girl's pride, which had been roused by a few querulous words that she had overheard on the night she arrived at Carroll. Lady Flora had been standing with her husband by the hall fire, and Frances, coming downstairs, had been the unwilling hearer of her aunt's remark. " If only Philip had married as he ought to have done, instead of marrying a mill-girl, Frances could have gone to her mother's people, and we should have escaped all this trouble and inconvenience." Frances had hurried on, and her aunt, unconscious of being overheard, little thought that her own words were at the root of much of the unpleasantness of the three years which were to follow, or with the crisis which brought them to a close.

If Lady Flora had started with a feeling of resentment at the presence of her niece upon the first night, it was a feeling which took larger dimensions as time went on. If Frances had been gentle and docile, easy to be led in her aunt's way, and willing to submit to the many restrictions which her aunt wished to enforce, probably it would have gradually died away, and in a little while have been totally forgotten. But, as it was, her living at Carroll was an infliction which Lady Flora resented more bitterly every day. There were so many points of grievance : in the first place, the girl was very plain, both her daughters were pretty, and she objected to take about with her a niece who was not — so, at least, she said ; in the second place, in spite of her want of good looks, Frances invariably attracted the notice of those she met, she was popular with women, she was even more popular with men.

But what vexed both her aunt and the girls most was the enthusiasm which was roused by the exceeding beauty of her voice ; that a " plain, lanky girl," such as she, should have the power to hold crowded rooms in perfect silence was most annoying to them ; but to know that invitations to the Carroll " at homes " were always eagerly accepted by even the most exclusive people, simply because Frances would sing at them, was utterly unbearable. If Mr. Carroll had not been very fond of his niece she would not have stayed at Carroll Court for many months ; but he was so very kind to her, thought so much of her pleasure and comfort, and was in every respect such a good friend to her, that Frances submitted, with what patience she could, to the many little slights of the girls, who held themselves invariably aloof from her, and ignored, as a rule, the little hints and innuendos with which Lady Flora could fill remarks — which to other people sounded most affectionate and gentle.

If, then, this objectionable girl could not be removed from their midst in any other way she must be suitably married as soon as possible, and surely with so much attention paid her this project would be easy to carry out. But here again defeat seemed always at hand, Frances was so very naturally off-hand, and hail-fellow-well-met with everyone, c that men looked upon her more as a companion than as a possible wife. But at the end of three years Lady Flora felt that her difficulties were coming to an end. A young man who had been a friend of the family all his life, who had large estates, and a baronetcy to boot, came to ask Mr. Carroll's permission to speak to his niece. Lady Flora felt indeed that the burden was about to be taken from her shoulders. " He is so steady and reliable, and so very well off.

Frances is most fortunate," she said to her husband when he told her. The idea that Frances might refuse to marry this estimable young man never entered into her aunt's mind for a moment.

Chapter II

A FAMILY QUARREL. " l\/s **-'ES, we are going to be terribly late, do IV J. make haste." " Oh ! who cares ? " " I do ; Lady Flora was very angry with me for coming out at all, and she made me promise to be in by five. I hate to break my promise, though what she wants me for I cannot imagine." Miles Carroll, a boy about fifteen, laughed. " Can't you really, Frances ? Well, I can ; Ralph Germaine is coming over this afternoon." " Well ? " Frances Carroll asked shortly, pulling up her horse as she spoke. " Well ? " mimicked her cousin. " Miles, you are a most aggravating boy. Come, we may as well jump this ditch, it is much nearer over the fields." The two were riding homeward on a dark February afternoon ; the evening was already beginning to draw in, and deep shadows lay upon the stretch of flat, wind-swept land before them.

" Come, Miles, let us race across," she cried, putting her horse at the ditch. For some time nothing more was said as the two rode neck to neck over fields and ditches, on their wild course. The wind, with biting gusts, tried to stop c their speed as it met them face to face, but they rushed on unheeding ; nor, indeed, did they draw in until they had both cleared the hedge, which divided the road from the field, opposite to Carroll Court. " I have won," he gasped. " Oh ! Miles, where do you expect to go ? " she retorted, bending down to pat her horse's neck, as they went through the old, stone gateway. " You are so beautifully tidy, my mother will be edified, especially if she has any callers," Miles whispered as the}' went into the hall, where the family were having tea in front of the great fire which roared and blazed as it consumed the logs of which it was largely made up.

Frances looked down at her much-splashed habit with a grimace ; then she went boldly forward, know ing that she was already seen. " We have had such a lovely ride, Grace," she said, sitting down beside one of the girls. " Have you, indeed," her cousin answered with a little drawl, pulling her pretty tea-gown rather to one side as she spoke. Lady Flora poured out a cup of tea in ominous silence. " Miles, pass this to your cousin," she said, when she had finished. Nothing more was said for some time by anyone ; Frances drank her tea and ate her cake, feeling that this time she was in deeper disgrace than usual, al though no complaint had been made ; two big hounds, who had been asleep before the fire, stretched themselves lazily, then coming across to where she sat, sank heavily down at her feet ; Miles, who was standing behind his mother's chair, made signs to he to make haste and come away.

Her uncle and the other boys were not there, and she felt that, except Miles, there was no one to take her part in the scene which she prophetically knew was to follow. As soon as she had finished tea, she got up, with a remark about her habit, and went towards the stair case, but Lady Flora made a sign for her to stop. " Frances, I wish to speak to you before you go upstairs," she said in her low, clear voice. The girl came back towards the fire slowly, and stood facing her aunt with a somewhat defiant ex pression. " Did you know that Sir Ralph Germaine was coming this afternoon when you went out against my wish ? " " Yes." " Ah ! I quite thought so, from what he told me when he was here," was the cold answer. Frances did not speak, but bent down to stroke one of the dogs who had come up to her side.

" He also told me that he had had a letter from you." "Then he told you the truth, Lady Flora," she answered. " I must say that I was a little surprised when I heard it, — or I should have been, if one of my own daughters had done such a thing." f There was something in her slow, quiet way of speaking, when she was annoyed, which always irritated Frances intensely. "Should you, Lady Flora? Fortunately your daughters are, neither of them, likely to do such a thing," she answered with a careless little laugh. "No, my dear, thanks to their bringing up. Of course I can hardly expect you to— to understand things as they do, instinctively ; but do you think it was quite wise of you, my dear, to write to Sir Ralph as you did, without consulting either your uncle or me, — especially when the question you answered so impulsively had never been asked you directly ?

" Nothing is more calculated to make a quick tempered girl vexed than to call her impulsive, especially when the word is said with a patronizing little smile, and Frances broke in angrily, — " He asked Uncle Frank, which was just the same ! " " Hardly, my dear. Of course he mentioned his wish to make you his wife to your uncle first ; but if you had only had a little patience he would have asked you himself — in fact he was coming for the purpose this afternoon." " Really, Lady Flora, you speak as though I had written to accept him ! " " The principle is the same, Frances — quite the same. If you had only not been so impulsive there would have been none of this unpleasantness. But, as I said to Ralph this afternoon, it is not quite to be expected that you should know exactly what is what."

" Come, now, I say, mother ! " expostulated the schoolboy Miles uncomfortably ; " if Germaine wanted to marry her why couldn't he ask her instead of naking all this fuss?" " A boy like your cousin can hardly understand such things, Frances ; but I assure you, my dear, that amongst us it is not advisable for a young girl to answer such a serious question without consulting a parent or guardian. I daresay, in your mother's station " " Lady Flora ! I will not have my mother's name mentioned," Frances interrupted passionately. " Speak a little more quietly, Frances ; I do not care to hear shouting from a girl. But as I was going to say, you have not been brought up amongst your mother's class. Your father, in spite of his having so unfortunately forgotten the fact, was a gentleman, and — dear, dear, how trying the girl is !

Really your father was to blame when he insisted upon her coming to Carroll. Pick up her hat and gloves, Grace, please. I expect your father will be in directly." Frances had flung down her things, and gone furiously upstairs in the middle of Lady Flora's speech. " Oh ! how dare she speak like that about them, how dare she ! " she cried, as she slammed her bed room door ; " she is always hinting at things about my mother ! Always ! but she never "went so far as this before. I wish — I wish — I wish my father had sent me to my mother's people when he died, instead of here. It's all because I did not say 'Yes ' to Ralph Germaine ! If I had, I should have heard nothing about the letter I wrote to him. ' We ' do this and that, and should never think of doing the other — oh ! how I hate it all.

I don't belong to ' we,' and I never will. Lady Flora wants me to leave Carroll, and thinks that to have me married would be the easiest way. But there are more ways of going than that." Two hours afterwards she went down to dinner, to all appearance in her usual state of good temper. She laughed and joked with the boys, questioned her uncle as to the prospect of the next day's hunting, told gay little stories about her afternoon's ride, ana altogether was so bright and amusing that neither Mr. Carroll nor the cousins, who had been out at the time of that unlucky tea, had any idea of a disturbance ; and even Miles, as he listened to her merry, careless words, came to the conclusion that after all the outburst had been nothing more serious than usual. Nevertheless, he noticed that she did not speak at all to his mother, which seemed a little strange, for she was generally so very contrite and anxious to " make up " after a display of her temper.

But just as aimless sparks, from a passing train, will set on fire trees dried by the heat of the fierce summer sun, so a chance remark from her uncle roused Frances into the passion for which her aunt had already prepared her. "So you will have nothing to do with poor Germaine, France ? " he said, with a little pinch of her ear, as she sat beside him on the couch after dinner. " No, Uncle Frank." "It seems rather a pity to refuse him after all. He is a very good fellow," Mr. Carroll went on, a little more gravely. "That was what I wished to tell her this afternoon, but she left me so abruptly," Lady Flora said suavely. " It would be a splendid match for her — one which it is very improbable she would have again." " Oh, I don't know about that ; it is always said there are ' as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it,' " her husband answered, in his careless, good tempered way.

" I daresay. But it is not every man who would be willing to overlook poor Philip's unfortunate marriage." " Tut, tut ! Who thinks anything of that in these democratic days ? " " Very few — when they are only talking about it, Frank." Frank Carroll began to wish he had not started the subject ; he knew well by the tone of his wife's voice that unpleasantness would follow. " But it is so different when men intend to marry ; they like to have — well, presentable connections." " My mother was " Frances exclaimed ; but Lady Flora went on, with a wave of her hand, " My dear, you are so very rash ; I do not think Mrs. Philip Carroll's name was even mentioned. But now that you have done so, I may as well tell you that I think it is not only foolish, but unfair to your cousins, to refuse such an offer as Sir Ralph's ; your mother's position in life was not such that any man would care to marry her daughter."