Lost and Saved

Front matter

LOST AND SAVED AAA. ri®§¥ 1A&® g/A\\/[E[D)„ . . LOST AND SAVED. BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON, AUTHOK OF "STUART OF OTJNLEATH," &c, &c. MErmsTOPHELEs. — ©;e ijj gericjjtet ! Chokus of .Angels. — 3ft gcrcttct ! She is lost ! Is saved ! Goethe's Faust. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. JOHS CHILDS AND SON, PKINTER5. TO ARTHUR ALGERNON EARL OF ESSEX. Dear Lord Essex, In the old happy days when your girl and my boy rode laughing races through the woods of Wiesbaden, and you and I took more cheerful walks than I can ever take again : when your beautiful and pleasant sisters were " new friends," and we all hoped to make but one family : I jested with you as to your notions of charm and perfection in woman, and told you I would some day create a heroine on that model, and bring her to grief in a novel.

The real griefs and heavy anxieties of life have over shadowed both our homes since those days ; and both those young voices are silent for ever, whose music we thought would linger with us, till we ourselves were insensible to earthly sounds. From this cause, — and many other disturbing causes, — the work begun so long ago has only lately been brought to a conclusion. I still offer it to you ; glad to feel that amid " all the chances and changes of this mortal life " our friendship at least remains unaltered. I present to you no faultless heroine in Beatrice Brooke ; but I have the fullest confidence and foreknowledge that you will love her DEDICATION. better than the unexceptionable Mariana, or even sweet Helen Wollingham. And if the relation of her adventures should help to lighten some tedious day, — when you are suffering from what I should have termed the unendurable pain of tic-douloureux, if I had not witnessed the noble and patient courage with which you have always sustained it, — the volumes begun under such different auspices will still remain a pleasant memory to me.

In the hush of the library at Cassiobury, — full of rarer and more important works, which when borrowed are to be accounted for by written hostages left in the deserted shelf, — give my Beatrice a home, as near the sunny window as you can ! And when she is missing from her nook, may the names only of " friendly readers," — of the young, the kindly, and the enthusiastic, — be found inscribed on the slips of paper which shall guard her vacant place ; crowning, I hope, her frequent absence with her speedy and safe return. And so, with all good wishes for the future, and affec tionate memories of the past, Believe me, Yours most truly, CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON.

Chapter I. The Home Of Leonora Aldi

Reader, were you ever at Tenby ? I dare say not. It is more probable that you have visited Brighton, Weymouth, East bourne, Hastings Torquay, Boulogne, Dieppe, Havre, Ostend, Honfleur, or any other bathing-place, than that you have been at Tenby ! And yet that lovely town lies barely two hundred and fifty miles from London, and offers all that would seem to be irresistible attractions, both to sick and hale, in tbe multi tude of its pleasant excursions, the long stretch of its level sands, and the magnificent views which surround it. Pembroke Castle, famous in history, is in the immediate neighbourhood ; and a letter to Oliver Cromwell from one of his generals, in June, 1648, is said to be extant, which thus records the valour of the Tenbyites : " We have more trouble," says the irate soldier, " with these Welshmen than we looked to have ; and the seaport town of Tenby holdeth out as though she thought herself to be Pembroke Castle."

Before a month was out, both Castle and town were taken. A still quainter memory of Tenby is preserved in the history of two bishops whose residences were in sight of each other, and who, being both celebrated gourmands, employed the in genuity of their leisure — at a time when " telegrams " were unknown — in contriving a set of signals stating what each had planned in the way of a good dinner for that day. Both bishops continued telegraphing, a qui mieux mieux, until one became so thoroughly convinced of the superior Ude and Soyer inspirations, of the other, that the flag of his episcopal castle was hauled down in token of cheerful surrender, and of the in tention of the vanquished to dine with his right reverend l brother. The record, however, closes somewhat gloomily ; for this diverting rivalry of culinary enjoyment was suddenly inter rupted by one of the bishops, Bishop Barlow, coming " under the law " for disposing of the leaden gutter pipes and ornaments of his residence ; whether to defray the excess of expend iture in copper stewpans, or, as history apologetically assures us, to provide portions for his five daughters, cannot now be known.

But we have every reason to believe that good Bishop Barlow's stripping the palace of St David's and Castle Llewhaden of their leaden roofs did not appear a heinous sin in the eyes of his clerical contemporaries, for we read that the five daughters were comfortably married to five other bishops, namely, the Bishops of Hereford, Lichfield, Coventry, and York ; and Day and Wickham, successively Bishops of Winchester. " Autre temps, autre mœurs." These, however, are anecdotes belonging to bygone days ; and Tenby lies now among the scattered ruins that speak of quaint histories and warlike times, clad in a cheerful smile. The sunshine gleaming on her slate-roofed houses lights up a hundred lovely nooks in Caermarthen Bay ; in every nook a home where, if the luxury of the gastronomic bishops be not attainable, there is content, and elegance, and much merriment.

Laughter sounds through the honeysuckle hedges that trail down the high banks to the very sands of the sea ; and peeps of pretty gardens, with more variety of flowers than it would seem possible could be crammed into the small space, delight the passer-by with bursts of bloom and fragrance, as he roams along his shoreward path. In one of these homes — the most hidden of all in its sur rounding hedges of honeysuckle, sweetbriar, and travellers' joy ; the most wonderful of all for the proportion of flowers to the size of its garden (which even boasted a succession of green terraces sloping to the sea, and some graceful copies of antique statues) — lived, at the time of which I am writing, a retired army captain, a widower, with his two daughters. All the population of Tenby knew and respected Captain Brooke ; and all knew his history, which, though simple, was in the opinion of the female portion of that little society, " ex tremely romantic."

Eor when Captain Brooke was a smart young officer, serving with the allied armies, his comrade and bosom friend was killed by his side ; and, while he lay bleeding to death, he confided to Captain Brooke that he was married to a Piedmontese of noble birth, against the will of her family and that she and her little girl would be left friendless and forlorn in this world of trouble. " The bitterness of death to me," he said, " is leaving my Leonora without a home ! " Those were the last words of the slain ; and Captain Brooke could only hope that his expiring comrade heard his attempt at consolation, by the sweet sad smile which rose amid tlie shadows of death already darkening over his handsome face, and sealed his brow with that unutterable expression of calm which death alone can show. " While I have a home, Leonora Aldi shall never want one."

That was Captain Brooke's answer. He kept his promise, though it really seemed in after-days a perplexing one. When the horror and grief of war-time passed away ; when the beautiful young widow and her child were quietly, and even cheerfully, dwelling in England ; when Napoleon was exiled to St Helena, and Captain Brooke himself had to return home ; when, in short, circumstances so altered round them that a certain awkwardness sprung up, — Captain Brooke had to consider how he could best fulfil his pledge ; and being a man without female relatives or family ties, the bright idea occurred to him to make one vow more, to rivet thc exact and permanent performance of the first. He proposed for the pretty widow, and was accepted ; and he took the little villa near Tenby, and called it " The Home of Leonora Aldi."

But the simple inhabitants of that Welsh seaport, being as much puzzled as the inhabitants of some Irish village, who, when a gentleman called his house " II bei Retiro," transformed the name to " Balrattery," were completely posed by the title given to the Tenby cottage ; and, after struggling with various mis nomers, the place grew to be called simply " The Home," and as such was known to all the little world of Tenby. And a Home it was, to all intents and purposes. Whatever of sacred and tender may lie in the spell of that dear word which foreign languages cannot translate, was to be found there in tranquil perfection. The Italian widow had not long survived her second mar riage ; but she died thanking Captain Brooke for all his kind ness, and she lived long enough to leave him two children, in addition to the little orphan he had gathered to his bosom with that friendless wife.

He loved that pale gentle girl for her mother's sake and her own : loved her as well as his own Beatrice, the merry maid of sixteen, wild as a fawn and beautiful as a picture : loved her as well as his dark-eyed and daring Owen, who, cradled within sound of the dashing waves, was already a midshipman in the royal navy. They were a very happy family ; sought and respected by their equals, sought and beloved by the poor. Familiar to the toiling fisherman, the distressed sailor, the wayworn woman and her babe, was the steep path that led to The Home. Charity and tenderness dwelt there ; hope and help. As to more ambitious hospitali ties, they were rare and unfrequent. Captain Brooke never gave " a dinner party " in his life ; but now and then one friend, or even two friends," dined at The Home.

Some stray geologist, or some remarkable and pleasant tourist, was invited to partake their meal ; and on these occasions Mariana, the elder sister, and Beatrice, the younger, set out their table with flowers, and the captain himself decanted his best wine, and in the evening the girls sang to the guitar or listened to grave conversation, and they all went smiling to bed, with a gay " good night," and a tender " God bless you," to meet in the morning with the same joy and in the same peace. So happy, in their obscure corner at Tenby, were all the inmates of that lovely cottage, pointed out to strangers as " The Home." So happy ! up to a certain time at which our story com mences, when the cloud and the breeze, which were to grow into murky tempest, came on, one fresh summer's day, and brought change, and darkness, and shipwreck, tears and sorrow, into the pleasant garden and the sunny chambers, and the hearts of the dwellers by the lone sea-shore.

Chapter II

A BIRTHDAY "FETE. Well, there was no sorrow yet. On the contrary, the party from The Home were out on the shore eelebrating,'by a simple festival of their own, the birthday of the handsome sailor-boy Owen. They were to drink tea on the sands. Why they should drink tea on the sands, instead of in the comfortable sunny drawing-room of the cottage, let the lovers of picnic meals determine ; it must have been pleasanter or they would not have done it. Captain Brooke was there' smiling and animated, chatting gaily with his midshipman son. Mariana, the elder of the girls, sat in the deep recess of the little sandy cove, making a parade of her tea and cake unpacking them out of a rustic basket, and setting in the midst of all a glass vase full of the beautiful white moss roses, for which Captain Brooke's garden was so celebrated.

Beatrice, the younger girl, scarcely yet weaned from childish play, had hung her beautiful brown hair with seaweed, whose delicate strips of various colours drooped over her cheeks and Deck. A "mermaid toilette" she called it, "in honour of the birthday ofa sailor brother;" and surely no ornament that ever was worn could be more beautiful than those fairy wreaths of crim son and green, and tawny yellow — damp, pliant, and pendent — mixing with the brown curls that floated in rich profusion on her shoulders. A large Newfoundland dog barked and scratched among the lazy star-fish that moved on the shore ; and a tall, grave-looking young man, a friend and neighbour, Maurice Lewellyn, leaned against the rocky steps that led from the garden of The Home to the sea-shore. < Presently Beatrice called to the dog, which leaped caress ingly to her hand, " Come, doggie," she said, " Come, Owen, — ■ let us have a race along the level sands.

Let us see who will run a mile and win. Maurice Lewellyn shall be umpire ; he was made for an umpire, he is so grave ; one, two, three, and away ! " Laughing as they started, the young brother and sister set off full speed, their white teeth glittering with that smile peculiar to southern blood, their soft eager eyes full of sunshine and mirth. The boy tossed his cap back to Mariana, sitting tranquil among her little household preparations, and ran bare headed by the side of the smiling Atalanta who had challenged him. Her white dress fluttered on the breeze, her strange " mermaid " head-dress — hair and seaweed confused and inter mingled — shone in the evening sun, now burnished brassy brown, now crimson and green and yellow. The stretch of bright sands lay before them, skirted on one side by a calm blue sea specked with snowy sails ; and on the other by broken rocky banks, sweet with the perfume of honeysuckle and travellers' joy.

The evening light touched every object with glory. Swiftly they flew over the sands, those two merry young creatures, and the great heavy handsome Newfoundland dog. Suddenly Beatrice turned, and flew back like a white sea-gull to the little cove where her sister sat. '• I thought I should win ! " said she, laughing and pantiDg, as she dropped on her knees. Owen stopped, and shouted " Shame ! " with a breathless smile. The dog went careering on, then halted, looked round, and ran back barking and bounding to his mistress. " Your pardon, doggie, for cheating you," said the laughing girl, as she patted his forehead. " I said we would run a mile, and I have run half a mile out and half a mile back." " What does the umpire say ? " asked Owen. " The umpire thinks Beatrice a little unprincipled cheat," said the young man with a grave smile.

" And now let her rest and take tea : her cheeks are as flushed as the sky. Let her rest, and watch that lovely sight opposite." They did watch, while a yacht which stood as close in to the shore as her draught of water would permit, nearly opposite their place of merry-making, slackened sail, — and then putting off its cockle-shell of a boat, landed, within a yard or two of their stairs, a young gentleman who, without further ceremony than lifting his hat, advanced rapidly to the group, and accosting Captain Brooke with easy courtesy, asked if there was not a short cut to Treherne House somewhere thereabouts. " Yes," said Captain Brooke. " Up these steps and through* my garden there is a very short way to the house you want — not that I have much acquaintance with the inmates of the house, though we claim cousinhood."

"Do you?" said the stranger. "I claim cousinhood too, and have landed to see them. Mv name is Treherne — Montagu Treherne." "My name is G-aveston Brooke," said the old officer, smiling " And now we have gone through the ceremony of introduction, will you pause a little on the sands while we take tea, and I will accompany you myself as guide afterwards. Let me present my son to you, and my daughters." Marian smiled and bowed. Beatrice was ashamed of her flushed cheeks and her absurd head-dress ; and while she also bowed she made several private attempts to pull the sea-weed out of her hair, and restore order to her curls ; — not from vanity — she was not thinking of her beauty — but because she felt ashamed of appearing before a stranger like a romping un tidy child. She soon recovered her embarrassment, however, and laughed and blushed, when taxed with her disloyal endea vours to alter the " mermaid head-dress " sacred to the day.

"Not a mermaid, but a syren," Captain Treherne said. "The mermaids are ugly creatures like seals, I have seen several." " And the syrens ? " " I have not seen the syrens, but I conjecture them to be exactly like the young ladies now drinking tea in this cove on the sea-shore." And so with foolish jesting and happy talk the young party loitered through another hour of the sweet declining sunset. And Beatrice forgot the remaining droops of seaweed in her hair, and shook them back merrily with her curls, and poured the tea out into large conch-shells, and bid the party drink out of them to Owen's health, and made the large dog leap extraordinary leaps for minute fragments of biscuit, and borrowed her brother's telescope to look at the yacht as it stood off and on with slack sails alternately white and pink in the sunset, and helped her sister to pack up the picnic cups and saucers and shells and flowers, and clapped her hands as a signal for the little parlour-maid of The Home to come down the rugged steps and take the basket and cloth away.

And all she did, even that which seemed almost childish, was done with that unspeakable grace which makes trifles charming. Commenting on which, her brother Owen said she was what an old Scotch ballad termed a " freakish fay," and declared that he remembered one of her freaks, riding through the apple orchards that skirt the way to Wiesbaden; 'when she rode on impatiently in front of her party, and notched a piece out of the cheeks of countless apples as she went along, — by way of showing which route she had taken. And now it was determined that it was getting late, and the party turned homewards ; but first they loitered along the shore to the spot where the yacht's boat was lying, that Captain Treherne might give some orders before he accompanied Captain Brooke on the way to Treherne House.

And as they neared the boat he said, " I have a fellow among my crew with a voice like a nightingale, and I will make him sing you a song about a. syren." They turned the corner of the rock where the men were waiting ; one of them lying on his broad chest like a lazy seal. " Now, Ratty," said Treherne, as the young sailor started to his feet and made a not ungraceful salutation to the ladies, *' you are to sing that song for us, which Lady Eudocia Wol lingham heard on board the yacht at Cowes." Ratty looked doubtfully up, then smiled ; and then, without further preface, in a voice that would have called old Incledon's ,ghost out of the tomb, sang as follows : — It was a captin, bold and gay, As was loved by many a maiden, In a merchant ship he sail'd away With gold and good stuff laden ; Until he came to an island fair Where the syrens were disportin', And he seed one combing of her hair, And her he fell a courtin'.

Then he vow'd the vow as he always vow'd When to win was his endeavour : — " A Hadmiral of you might be proud, And I'll love you, my love, for hever ! ' But when his sailing time was come Away this captin started, And he left the syren in her home, Alone and broken-hearted. Then she called Neptune, king of the sea, Who rose at her commandin' ; " That captin has deceived me, Prewent his ever landin'." So the stormy wind came on to blow, With the lightning and the thunder, And the ship toss'd high, and the ship toss'd low, Till she sank the deep waves under I And when the storm was overpast And the wind lull'd on the billow, — That captin false he floated past With a wave for his head pillow ! Now captins gay that sail the seas To love's delights aspirin', Deceive what simple maids you please, But don't deceive a syren.

Having sung these stanzas with the gravity ofa judge and the shyness of a school-girl, Ratty retired a step or two be hind his companions, and waited further orders. " Don't you know any serious song, Ratty? " said the young midshipman — " something more sentimental ? I'm quite shocked at the conduct of that water-witch. Sing us a real love-song." " Well, I do know a little bit of a song, sir, but there's not much in it beyond the tune. They call it ' Out at Sea.' " Phœbe dear, your quiet eyes Shine on me ; With tlie evening star they rise, Out at sea ! Rippling o'er my ocean track Their beauty gleams ; Midnight watches bring them back, And daylight dreams. All I hope, and all I fear, Loved by thee, Haunts my heart, oh, Phœbe dear ! Out at sea ! There was, as Ratty said, nothing in the words ; and yet the sweet clear manly voice, the utter simplicity with which it was sung, the hour, the soft calm sunset, the atmosphere of youth and happiness around that birthday party, gave some thing to the song it had not in itself; and when Treherne, looking at the furled sails of his own yacht, murmured the words " Out at Sea," Beatrice blushed.

She had no reason for blushing ; she was extremely angry with herself for it — it embarrassed her ; but she hoped it was not noticeable, and she looked shyly away from the rest of the party to her sister's face, as if seeking for calm there. Eor calm was the very essence of Mariana's beauty ; and her large reverential eyes were fixed on the evening star at that moment with a sort of answering light. And on her eyes, and not on any other star, were fixed the grave glances of Maurice Lewellyn. So they strolled home ; and the girls and Owen went in, and their father and Maurice undertook to guide Captain Treherne to Treherne House. As the young midshipman threw himself on the cushions in the bay-window, where the moon already poured down a silver light as in a picture, he said, " Well, if ever I saw a fellow who was like Apollo in the heathen mythology, Captain Treherne is the man.

I never saw such a handsome fellow ! Did you see, Beatrice, when the wind took his hair and the light of the sunset was on his face ? he was like the figure of Phaeton, but grander — like Apollo. Don't you think he is like Apollo, Beatrice?' And Beatrice laughed, and said, " She had never seen Apollo, and therefore could not judge of the resemblance ; " but Beatrice blushed again, only she cared less for the fact than before, because there was no light but the moon, and no one by to see. But she stood at the window so long that at last the gentle hand of her sister touched her shoulder, telling her it was time to go to rest. And Captain Brooke came in, and the " Good night, God bless you! " of each to each iu that happy little circle again fell like dew on the closing flowers ; and the hush of prayer preceded the hush of sleep in the happy Home.

Chapter III. Love

I mat as well inform the reader at once that these two young people " fell in love with one another at first sight," as it is phrased. A method of establishing a preference whicli is unintelligible to some and condemned by others, but which nevertheless from time to time asserts its triumphant claim to be as good a method as any other, by some happy union which proves that the instinctive suddenness of the choice was no bar to constancy, nor evidence of shallowmess. Not always so ; not often so ; for the most part that love has wings such as Dædalus and Icarus perished in trying ; wings fastened with wax, that melt in the heat of the noonday sun ; and such preferences as have that sudden rise have as sudden a cessation — windfalls of the heart's budding spring — which show as fair as other fruit for a little while and then drop and are forgotten, while the slow sure harvest ripens on.

But Beatrice and Montagu Treherne did, as I say, " fall in love at first sight," and any one but simple Captain Brooke would have seen that they did so. He did not see it. His life was passed in early days in the busy energy of a soldier's career, and since those days in the narrow home circle we have described. Worldly calculations and worldly experi ences were entirely out of his line. If he had been the most acute of chaperons he would have altered nothing in the easy permission to Montagu and Beatrice to pass their days to gether, nor would it have appeared to Captain Brooke the least unlikely, or undesirable to the family of the young man, that he, beiug heir to an earldom, should marry the little Welsh girl Beatrice Brooke. But he never thought at all about the matter : he found Montagu an agreeable addition to the family circle, and his calculation did not go beyond.

Everybody w7as satisfied. They claimed cousinhood after the manner of the young Frenchman who said it was a variable species of relationship— where, if you liked the lady, you said " ma cousine," and if you disliked or were indifferent, " une cousine a moi." Montagu was extremely glad to be cousin to Beatrice Brooke — indeed he insisted more on this than on the much nearer cousinhood that existed between him and the beautiful golden-haired brood of first cousins, daughters of Lady Eudocia Wollingham of Treherne House, whom he had os tensibly landed to visit, and between whom and the Brookes some sort of intimacy had sprung up since his arrival. As much intimacy as Lady Eudocia could condescend to, for she was a very great lady indeed, and held that the egg-shell china of which she was made should not be set on the same shelf with the rough pottery of God's other creatures.

In deed she had been heard in conversation with a female friend to rebut the generally received axiom that " all men are equals in the sight of Heaven," by the single phrase, " Such nonsense you know, my dear ; as if they could be ! ' and the five golden-haired daughters were trained in their mother's creed. She had no son : five Disappointments, as she called her girls, had alone blessed her union with the deceased Mr Wollingham, and the stately widow had her own dreams of collateral motherhood when she invited Captain Treherne to pay a visit in his yacht to Tenby, whither she had repaired for the sea-bathing of the least robust of her progeny. Nothing is so obstinate as the behaviour of babies in these cases of heirdom of titles. Where it is of no consequence whatever whether girls or boys should be born, both sexes carelessly enter the world, or a series of saucy little males merrily lay claim to their share of the world's great scramble ; but when, as in the case of the earldom of Caerlaverock, it is of unspeakable consequence that " the next should be a boy," — pertinacious girls come w7ailing to their cradles ; the cock ades provided by hopeful mother and sanguine nurse are laid aside ; and the cackling of joy is changed to sighs and mur murs.

Considering the very numerous additions to the Treherne family, the babies of that race had shown more than common rebellion. The generation immediately preceding this had been composed of seven sisters. The justly incensed old Earl, their father, in vain endeavoured to set matters right by a confused and intricate will, limiting the descent of the fortune as far as he could, to any male heir who should marry out of the stock of female heirs. That celebrated old king of Britain, Brutus with the Blue Shield, — who, having thirty daughters to provide for, sent twenty-nine of them to Silvius, King of Italy, to be given to the noblest men descended from the nation of Troy, — was only one degree more puzzled than the Earl of Caerlaverock in the disposal of his girls. The seven sisters were all handsome but one, tall fine brunettes, with glad glittering eyes and good complexions ; and when in process of time these ladies became handsome old maids, or handsome elderly matrons, you could still see how beautiful they had been— in eyes whose long shining had kept the glitter and lost the gladness ; and in complexions carefully copied from the originals once in their possession, which they (and few other persons of their generation) remembered in their first freshness.