The Broken Seal: a novel

Front matter

VOL. I NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS AT ALL THE LIBRARIES. A HOUSE PARTY. By Ouida. i vol. A WICKED GIRL. By Mary Cecil Hay, author of ' Old Myddel ton's Money,' &c. 3 vols. THE COURTING OF MARY SMITH. By F. W. Robinson, author of ' Coward Conscience,' &c. 3 vols. ONCE AGAIN. By Mrs. Forrester, author of ' Viva,' ' Mignon,' ' My Lord and My Lady,' &c. 3 vols. A WILFUL YOUNG WOMAN. By A. Price, author of ' A Rustic Maid,' ' Who is Sylvias &c. 3 vols. HURST & BLACKETT, 13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. A NOYEL ISY DORA RUSSELL Al-THOR OF " FOOTPRINTS IN* THE SNOW," " THE VICAR'S GOVERNESS," " ANNABEL'S RIVAL," etc., etc. IN THREE VOLUMES YOL. I LONDON HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET 1SS7 All Rights Reserved PRINTED BY TILLOTSON AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET BOI.TON CONTENTS e7e[ THE FIRST VOLUME.

CHAPTER. rAGE. I. — A PAINFUL DUTY I II. — THE BEARER OF ILL NEWS . ... 25 III.— TIIE "BURLEIGH ARMS" 45 IV. — CREAKING THE NEWS 66 V.— ANNETTE DOYNE. . .... 85 VI. — JOHN LESTER GOES HOME 1 10 VII.— LAURA, JUNIOR 120 vm. — "jim" 132 IX. — SIK JAMES 150 X. — A WOOD-NYMPH 167 XI.— JIM'S LOVES 177 XII.— OUR PLEASANT SINS ...... I93 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER l'AGE. XIII.— BUNTING 2l6 XIV. — NEIGHBOURS 226 XV. — BRIDAL DAYS 249 XVI. — THE FAMILY SHADOW . . . . " . 263 XVII. — THE OLD LOVE AND TIIE NEW .... 2S5 XVIII. — NOT AT EASE 303 XIX. — QUITE AT EASE 315 XX. — CHAPLIN'S ERRAND

Chapter I

. A PAINFUL DUTY. In the whitewashed hospital of the barrack yard at Gortmouth, one dull, grey, October morning, a soldier lay dying. The man had fallen down on parade a few minutes earlier, and had been carried by some com rades into the hospital, and the hastily summoned doctor had at once declared the case to be hopeless. "It is a spasm of the heart, angina pec tor is," said the little Irish doctor, with VOL. I. B his hand on the man's wrist, but with his eyes fixed curiously on the soldier's breast, whose uniform lay open. "Ah, poor fellow, it is all over with him." There was a long-drawn, gasping breath, a shudder, a brief struggle, and it was, indeed, all over. The soldier, who had gone out half-an-hour before strong and stalwart, was now done with all earthly duties. He was a fine-looking man, still in his prime, brown-skinned from a long sojourn in India, from whence the regiment had only recently returned, and he had regular, strangely-marked features, and a well-formed, powerful frame.

But Dr. Galway was not looking at the dead soldier's face. Scarcely had the last breath died on his lips when the doctor bent over him and lifted a small, square packet, enclosed in a wash-leather cover, which lay on his breast. The doctor raised the packet, which was secured round the soldier's neck by a narrow cord, and glanced at a few words written on a slip of parchment sewn on the wash-leather cover. "What's this, Sergeant?" he asked sharply of the sergeant on duty, who also had been standing by the bed watching the soldier die. " Perhaps it's his will, sir," answered the sergeant, sadly enough. " I've often heard poor Lester say he would die quite suddenly — just as he has done." " ' To be opened after I am dead, by my Commanding Officer at the time of my death,'" read the Irish doctor, reading the inscription on the packet aloud, " ' and I pray him, for God's dear sake, after he breaks the seal of the enclosed letter, to fulfil the last wishes of a dead soldier.' Why, Sergeant, this looks serious," con tinued the doctor.

"You had better ask Major Doyne to step this way." Just as Dr. Gal way spoke, Major Doyne himself entered the hospital-ward, and approached the bed where the soldier lay. " How is your patient, Doctor ?" began Major Doyne, and then as the sergeant stepped back to give place to his com manding officer, the major's eyes fell on poor Lester's face. "What!" he said, shocked and surprised, " is the man dead ?" " There's no mistake, Major," answered the doctor ; " he's died of spasm in the heart. But look at this— this "is something out of the common, isn't it ?" And the doctor again lifted the wash-leather packet, and held it towards Major Doyne. Then Major Doyne took the packet in his hand, and read the words of the inscription just as the doctor had done. "'To be opened after I am dead, by my Commanding Officer at the time of my death, and I pray him, for God's dear sake, after he breaks the seal of the en closed letter, to fulfil the last wishes of a dead soldier.' " Major Doyne read these words aloud, and then looked at Dr. Galway.

"This is extraordinary!" he said, "and I suppose this duty devolves on me. Poor fellow ! Of course I shall do whatever he wishes. Here, Sergeant, have you a knife? Cut the sewing of this wash-leather cover open. The sergeant got out a penknife, and cut the stitches which secured the cover, and inside, a sealed letter addressed to " My Commanding Officer," was discovered. Major Doyne took the letter in this hand, and looked at the seal. It was a large red seal, deeply impressed with some armorial bearings. "This is most curious," said Major Doyne, examining the seal, " I suppose I ought to break it ?" "Oh! to be sure, Major," said the Irish doctor, who was besfinnino; to feel not a little inquisitive; "perhaps it's some plot, or some love affair, may be ?" he added,, with a smile. But Major Doyne gave no answering look.

He hesitated a moment, and then broke the seal of the letter, and took it out of the envelope. It was a long letter, and the major drew back from the little group round the bed to read it, and went and sat down on the narrow seat below the window-sill. It seemed somehow to him (a man of serious mind) a solemn thing to read these last words there, in the presence of the dead soldier. " To my Commanding Officer. " Sir, — When you read these lines, the hand that is now writing them will be cold in death, and I pray you, therefore, to believe every word I now write is true, and that the strange story I am about to tell you is an absolute fact. " Twenty-one years ago from the date of this letter [the letter was dated two years back] I was a young man in the first flush of youth. I was just twenty, a lad at college, and the heir to an old name and a large property.

I was the eldest son of Sir John Lester of Roden Court, in Midlandshire, and as the son of a rich man I was allowed a great deal more money than was good for me. " At this time, then, when all the follies of youth were strongest, there crossed my path a woman, whose rare and exceptional beauty made me — almost from the first moment I looked on her face — her slave. In vain older and wiser men had a word of warning to whisper in my ear. They told me what she was — good women dropped their eyes at the mention of her notorious name — but what did I care for good women ? I was blindly, madly, in love with a woman years older than myself — seven or eight in reality, twenty in the wisdom of the world ! And I believed she returned my passion. She was tender to me, and would whisper that she loved me — loved me above all others — and I drank in the honied words.

I would have done anything for her, and my large allowance was entirely spent upon her. But her extravagance knew no bounds. She was always wanting money, and I was always asking my father for it, until I suppose some whisper of my infatuation reached his ears, and he wrote me a sharp letter, telling me that he would not for the future exceed my allowance. " This letter reached me at an unfortunate time. Laura Lovat was at Brighton, where she had taken a house for the autumn, and she declared that she must have a certain sum of money by a certain day, or she would be in danger of being arrested. In an hour of madness — such madness that now I can hardly believe myself capable of it — I forged my generous father's name (which was the same as my own) for the money this woman required. " Two days later I was summoned to Roden Court.

The forgery had been dis covered, and my father sent for me, using some justly severe words, and bade me at once return home. My shame, my agony, were too great for words. I had intended to repay this money out of my allowance ; I had been sure the mad act would never be known. But the banker was a personal friend of my father's, and he had taken the cheque down to Roden himself, and I believe they intended to hush up the affair. But it was known ! My step-mother knew it, my father knew it, the banker knew it. I was overwhelmed at the thought of the disgrace that had fallen upon me, and I felt that I could never hold up my head again at home. My own mother was dead — but here let me do justice to Lady Lester, my step-mother. She was a handsome woman, and had always been most kind to me. She had one little boy, some eight years old at this time, and this child had been a great favourite of mine.

But in his letter commanding my return to Roden, my father used these bitter words : ' My other son, your half-brother, must be now as a stranger to you ; I cannot have him contaminated by your base example.' " I read these words — I got the letter by the night post, I remember — and I went out, miserable and ashamed, to Laura's house. She, at least, would have some tender word for me, I thought ; would tell me, as I had done this for her sake, that she loved me still. " She did not expect me ; I had arranged to go up to town that night, and when I arrived at her house I found she was out. I sat down in a little inner drawing-room I I of hers, and tried not to think. Then I heard a carriage drive up to the house door, and a few minutes later Laura entered the larger drawing-room with a man of whom I had often felt greatly jealous.

I shrank back from meeting this man, and the door between the two rooms being partly closed, they never saw me. The bitterness of that moment even now comes back to me. They began to talk of me, to jest about me, and — why need I go on ? I learned she was false to me, false in deed and in tongue. She, for whom I had sacrificed my honour, had none ; no pity for the poor boy, the poor fool, who had given up more than life for her sake. " They left the room together presently, and I was free to go. I went out, blind, stumbling in my despair. I madly loved this woman ; my life was dishonoured — what had I to live for ? I resolved to die. I returned to my hotel and wrote a farewell letter to my father and a farewell letter to Laura Lovat. I prayed my father's pardon and asked his forgiveness, and told him he would see his son no more ; that the sea would hide my disgrace, and that in an hour I would be dead.

I know not what I wrote to Laura — mad words of love, passion, despair and hate — and then I went out and posted these two letters, and having clone so went down to the sea to die. " I went along the lonely coast, and fixed on the spot from which to fling myself, and then my courage failed me. The dread unknown seemed even more terrible to me than a shamed and dis honoured life. But I had posted my farewell letters, and as I stood in the darkness, uncertain how to act, I heard a bugle-call in the distance, and in a moment determined to hide my shame under a soldier's rough red coat. " I went up to town by a night train, after slightly disguising myself, and the next morning I enlisted. I need not here describe my experience during the next eighteen months ; it was but that of an ordinary young soldier.

I had enlisted in my own name — John Lester — but no one suspected my identity with the hapless young man who was said to have destroyed himself. I read in the newspapers, with a bitter smile, the account of the suicide of the son of a baronet, and how Sir John Lester was said to be in great distress about the affair. Then my name and fate were alike forgotten. Perhaps, had she lived, my mother might have remembered her son, and thought of him in the restless sea-grave where he was supposed to be sleeping. As it was, I had no real mourner ; my father was too proud a man ever really to have loved me after my disgrace. " But though dead to my kinsmen, I was still a living man. I was a private was a private soldier, and in the months' service found and in that old seaport to me which induces letter to you, and ask Your hands.

J course of eighteen myself at Plymouth, something happened me to address this a great favour from " One day, while walking in the town, I became suddenly ill, and fell half-fainting into the arms of the man I happened to be with. He dragged me into a small tavern near, and when I recovered I was lying on the landlady's sofa in the backparlour, and a buxom, comely, young woman was bending over me. This was Mrs. Burleigh, the widow of the late landlord of the ' Burleigh Arms,' and she was very kind to me, and made me stay until I was quite recovered, and told me she would be glad to see me again. I went to thank her the next day, and this simple, kindly creature then told me her little history. " She had been born in the North somewhere, and came up to London as a little nursemaid, with the sister of the late landlord who was married to a doctor, and Mr. Burleigh had thus seen her, and married her when she was seventeen.

She was pretty, after a rustic, homely fashion, and honest and faithful, and when her husband died he had left her all his worldly possessions. She was well off, had a good business, and had many suitors, and after a while — still in her simple, kindly way — she gave me to understand that if she were choosing a second husband, that I would be her choice. I was not yet twenty-two, and she was about twenty - seven. But what did it matter ? To make a long story short, I married her, and at the end of this letter — to save trouble— you will find the date of our marriage, the church we were married in, and the date of the birth of our son " It is for the sake of this boy that I now write this letter ; that I now lift the veil that for twenty-one years has hidden my fate from the world. While here — in India — three years ago, I saw my father's death in the newspapers, and for a time I then thought of claiming my inheritance, but on consideration I decided not to do this ; only, in fact, to claim it for my boy after I was dead.

I have many reasons for this : My own early disgrace, my poor wife's low birth. But our son is different ; no possible disgrace can attach to him, and I now claim for him, and appeal to your sense of justice and honour to claim for him, the position which is undoubtedly his due. He is by every legal right Sir James Lester of Roden Court." Major Doyne read the letter so far in I J silence, though he had bitten his lips under his tawny moustache as he proceeded, and his tanned brown skin had grown a little pale. But now a sudden exclamation broke from his lips, and he rose and went back to the bedside and gazed steadfastly and curiously at the face of the dead soldier. He was trying to discover a likeness, the subtle family trace that shows itself in very dissimilar features. And, as he bent closer over the body, the doctor and sergeant not unnaturally felt extremely inquisitive.

"Have you discovered anything, Major?" at length asked the doctor. " The letter relates entirely to his family affairs — to something which happened years ago," answered Major Doyne, still looking at the dead man. "Oh! I'm not curious," answered the little doctor, nettled ; who thought he ought to be allowed to see the letter as well as vol. i c the major. " I'll just take a turn round, if you'll excuse me, and look at my other patients." " All right," said Major Doyne, absently ; and then he once more returned to his seat by the window and resumed reading the letter. It went on to state that his wife had been most anxious, and had frequently urged him to allow her to buy his discharge from the army, but that he had ever felt an invincible objection to become a tavern keeper, and he had preferred to follow the fortunes of his regiment, though he had always gone to see his wife and the "boy" whenever he could obtain furlough.

He had not, however, seen her now for five years, having during the whole of that time been on service in India, but he had frequently corresponded with her (thouo-h she had no idea of his real position in life), and he hoped to see her, if he were spared, on his return to England. The letter had been written in India, at Madras, during the prevalence of an attack of cholera there. It further stated that his commanding officer would find among his effects a small Indian ebony box, in which were enclosed his gold watch, with engraved crest, which he had worn at the time of his supposed suicide, and a ring and seal also engraved with the armorial bearings of his family, and the last letter that he had ever received from his father, in which Sir John Lester had told him that he must for the future be a stranger to his brother, as he (Sir John) could not allow the child to be "contaminated by your base example."

And the letter ended by earnestly entreating his commanding officer to see that justice was done to his young son. His wife's address and the date of his marriage, and the date of the birth of his son, were all placed in methodical order below, and the whole document was signed "John Lester," with the number of his regiment and the place, day, and year in which the letter was written. Major Doyne drew a long breath as he ended it, and pulled his moustache in great perplexity. For years he had been an intimate friend of the Lesters of Roden Court ; his father, Colonel Doyne, a retired military man, renting a small place in the same county where the splendid property of the Lesters lay. He had known old Sir John, he knew Lady Lester, and Alan Lester, the present possessor of the title and estates, was his close personal friend and was engaged to be married to his eldest sister !

And if this story were true ! Again Major Doyne went up and stood looking steadily at the still face, which the strange dignity of death had already changed. He remembered this man so well — a good soldier, brave and steady — he had been years and years in the regiment, and as Major Doyne stood there something that crept into his heart — a thought, a wish, a subtle temptation — made him turn hastily away from the silent reproach of those grey, half-open, sightless eyes. He gave some directions to the sergeant, and then went out of the hospital and along the ramparts, and entered one of the embrasures in the earthworks and leaned there looking down on the misty Northern Sea. He was a young man this — some seven and-twenty — a slight, slender, lithe-formed, little man, with a complexion tanned the colour of a Red Indian, and a long, tawny moustache, which looked so fair on his dark skin.

His features were small, good, and sharp, and he had bright, clear blue eyes. He was thinking of his sister Annette ; he THE BROKEN SEAL. had had a letter from her this morning full of "Alan." Annette Doyne was very happy, and very proud of her engagement to Sir Alan Lester. All the Doynes were proud of it. In social position, in personal character, in wealth, Sir Alan held a high and honoured place. He had known Annette for years, but only three months ago had he laid his heart and his large worldly possessions at her feet. His offer had absolutely elated the Doynes. They were poor, and though Annette was very pretty (so, at least, men said) Mrs. Doyne had hardly dared to hope for such a brilliant alliance for her child as this. And Major Doyne — Frank Doyne — was very well aware of the sentiments of his family regarding the marriage; and he was proud and fond of his sister Annette.

She was one of those girls who have a singular power and charm, without being an abso lute beauty. Women, as a rule, denied she was a beauty; she was too little, they said, and her charming face was freckled, and her lovely little nose not perfect in outline. But no one could deny her freshness, her brightness, her fair youth and her sunny smiles. Men raved round about her, and when Frank took her to a ball, he found himself a very popular man, and a good deal more courted than he was accustomed to be when he went in solitary state. And now she was engaged to his greatest friend — to Alan Lester — the man to whose fortune and position the letter he held in his hand might give so rude a shock. Major Doyne stood there in the embra sure and thought. The sea came sweeping in long rolling waves against the rocky base below the ramparts; the seagulls, with their white wings outspread, screamed overhead ; but Frank Doyne never noted them.

He was wishing with all his heart that the seal of that letter had remained unbroken ; that it had been buried with the dead soldier in some unknown grave. But — and he looked again at the superscription — the superscription that prayed his command ing officer at the time of his death " for God's dear sake to fulfil the last wishes of a dead soldier" — and he thought of the solemn look in those half-closed eyes, and he saw there was no help for it. He must do his duty, painful, horrible, though it might be, bringing misery and wretched ness to those nearest and dearest to him. Still, he had no choice. Honour left him no choice, and with a heavy heart he turned away from the misty sea and went to his barrack-room to prepare to start on his journey to Roden Court.

Chapter II. The Bearer Of Ill News

The next morning, when the sky was quite blue, and the air full of the strange, sad sweet ness which blows through the breath of the waning year, Major Doyne found himself walking slowly among the domains of Roden Court. A rich, fair country this — the green pasture lands, the broad fields of yellow stubble, from which the garnered grain was gone ; the wide park, where the deer stole through the ferny undergrowth beneath the old trees, or slaked their thirst in the still waters of the lake. It was a beautiful and stately home to which Sir Alan Lester hoped to bring his fair young bride, and with a bowed head and a heavy step Major Doyne passed down the elm avenue that led to the house, on his distasteful errand. He had walked from the nearest railway station, having travelled direct from Gort mouth, without telling his family he meant to visit Midlandshire.

He wished to see Alan Lester alone, before any other human being knew of the strange incident that had happened yesterday. He felt that this was but just to Alan ; that Alan might be able to throw some light on his eldest brother's supposed death, that even would disprove the dead soldier's story. And when he came in sight of the Court — a grand old house, standing on its broad terraces, with the October sun shining down on the changing foliage of the woods, on the green lawns and glowing flower beds — this hope suddenly grew stronger. It might be some trick, some scheme. How unlikely that the real owner 2J of such a place would have hidden himself for years in the lowly position and humble garb in which this man had lived and died ! This idea was so consoling to Major Doyne, that when he saw Lady Lester and her son out on the terrace in front of the house, he advanced to meet them without the same shrinking that he had felt when he first approached Roden.

Lady Lester was sitting in a bath-chair, and Sir Alan reading a newspaper by her side. Major Doyne could see them look at each other and smile as he approached unseen, for a very tender affection existed between the mother and her son. There was a story attached to these two — so sad a story that it had darkened Alan Lester's youth with the shadow of an un ending regret. When he was between nineteen and twenty years of age, in the flush of his young and happy manhood, he had one day insisted upon driving his mother out with a pair of young and spirited horses. His father had laugh ingly advised Lady Lester not to trust herself with Alan, and this had spurred the lad's mettle, and he had easily per suaded his fond mother to go with him. Lady Lester was a very handsome woman at this time, tall and fully developed, and Alan was proud of his mother, and liked to be seen with her.

But that winter morning when he drove her out, wrapped in her sables, smiling, happy, along the country lanes, which the breath of the hoar-frost had just touched with rime, was destined to be the last drive that Lady Lester ever took. A cruel disaster happened. Something startled the young horses, and they took flight, and perhaps Alan was not an experienced enough whip to manage them. At all events, the high phaeton in which they were driving was overturned, and when Alan, stunned and bruised, contrived to struggle to his feet from the hard ground on which he had been thrown, such a sight met his eyes that the memory of it could never fade again. They were lifting his mother up from a heap of stones by the wayside, to all appearances, dead. Lady Lester had been flung out as the carriage overturned, and the struggling horses had dragged it over her.

She was frightfully injured ; both legs broken, and for long it was feared that some internal hurt which she had received would prove fatal. Perhaps the agonised prayers of the poor boy were heard ; perhaps the fond mother's love which filled Lady Lester's heart made her able to support, for his sake, the miserable pain that she heroically endured. Her life was spared. She recovered, but she was a cripple ; her fine form bent, and one leg a little shorter 2,0 THE BROKEN SEAL. than the other ; but her face more beautiful still. It was like the face of an angel, Alan sometimes thought, so full of pity, tenderness, and great, im mortal love. These two had loved each other before, hut after this dreadful accident their love increased three-fold. But it blighted Alan's youth. He became grave from gay — a sad, serious man, while his moustache was still down.

Eleven years had passed since then. Alan Lester was now thirty-one, tall, slender, and well-formed, with grey eyes and a pleasant face ; and as Major Doyne's approaching footsteps fell on his ears he looked up from his newspaper with a smile which made him handsome. "Why, Frank, old man," he said, "who ever expected to see you ?" The two men shook hands warmly. They were great friends ; they were bound together by various sympathies and ties. " When did you come ?" asked x^Ian Lester, as Major Doyne went up to Lady Lester's bath-chair. " They didn't expect you at Kingsford yesterday !" " No, and they don't expect me there still," answered Major Doyne. " I came straight here — I have travelled all night, and got to your station half-an-hour ago. I thought I would look you up first, Alan." " Delighted to see you ; but come along into the house, my mother will excuse you, I know ; you must want something to eat and something to drink."