Theo Leigh. A novel

Chapter I. Introduces Theo

Down on the sea-board of the county of Norfolk, on the verge of a long waste of marsh land that intervenes between it and the German Ocean, there stands a little village, Houghton by name, semi-agricultural and semi-aquatic by nature. A hardy little village, as it befits one of such purely Scandinavian traditions to be, scorning to shelter itself from the fierce winds that blow across to it from the hardier north, or from the chilling blasts that whistle shrewishly along from the east. A hardy enduring village, bravely patient of the blasts, and as bravely opposed to the mastery of the sea, whose encroachments it VOL. I. B has checked with a" deftly-constructed bank of most impervious mud ; an artistic village, whose fields are tilled and pasture-lands are cultivated into the semblance of the fairest mosaic; an in dependent village, that sends its own smacks out to " oyster-sea " and panders unassisted to the bivalve loves of its inhabitants ; a gaUant little village that guards its own portion of the coast from those ruthless rascals the smugglers, by aid of a naval officer in command of six able-bodied seamen ; a little village, that is so superb in its appearance of utter remoteness from and indiffer ence to all that goes on beyond its own confines, — that revolves on its own axis so quietly year after year, suffering the world and all its business to roll on without the let and hindrance of question, — that cares so little whether armies are decimated and countries devastated for an idea, — that prays for the Queen's ministers, but does not care very much to what party they belong, — that is altogether so absorbed in and satisfied with itself, that it is bard to believe that it is only " eight hours (usual speed) from London."

Houghton has its drawbacks. What viUage is free from them ? Owen Meredith has declared in one of his misery-fraught melodies that the " women free from faults have beds beneath the wiUow." I wish he would give a local habitation and a name to the villages "free from faults." The hordes of discontented ones who are weary of the haunts of men, would be down upon them to their detriment forthwith ; and Houghton would not be amongst their number, for Hough ton has its drawbacks. First amongst these shall be reckoned a pleni tude of the perfumes and a lack of the luxuries that commonly infest sea-side places. With the majority of the winds that blow the odour of marshmud is prevalent; and tbe odour of marsh mud, though healthy, doubtless, is not delightful. But worse than this is the fact, that unless the " tide serves " (which it never does when you want to go on to the beach), it is impossible, though almost on the brink of it, for Houghton to catch a sight of the German Ocean, by reason of that broad expanse of marsh and mud and many creeks which intervenes.

Houghton has its cockle-strand, and the flavour b2 of those cockles is esteemed in that county-side. They are big, blue, burly. They form a mighty portion of the integral trade of that quiet little village, for " peasant girls with deep blue eyes, and hands that offer " burly cockles, " come smiling o'er this paradise," through all the summer months, with baskets full of the result of their bare-footed labours down on the strand. The way that leads down to this cockle-strand is called by a name that indicates (so Houghton proudly asserts) that it at one time traded more largely and had a quay of its own, for the way is called " Quay-land " — and it is the haunt and lounge of the coastguard and fishermen all the week, and of the whole population on Sundays. The house in Houghton that stands nearest to, and commands the best view of the sea, is, though one of the only three good houses in the village, known by no name.

To strangers, the very few who enter, it is pointed out as the " chief officer's " or the " Leftenant's " house : to the in habitants it is familiar as " The Leighs'." It is not particularly interesting from an architectural or artistic point of view, for it is simply a square stone building, with straight sash windows in front, — a shiny sloping slated roof, and an entrance door planted with severe exacti tude in the centre. But to the casual passer-by it has an importance by means of adventitious aids. For instance, towering above its shiny slated roof there is a "look-out" of white-painted woodwork which stands out well from the blue tiles ; patrolling outside the gate there is always a coastguard-man in naval uniform, with a big "Dobond" under his arm, and a hand that is prompt with tbe graceful salute of the service to any one who may address him.

It is a sweet old farce to me, this guarding the coast from nothing. Though we are now at peace with every possible invader, and free-trade is in the ascendant, stib, I trust the play that gives a remunerative "part" to so many will never be played out. There is monotony, it is true, in the work that falls to the lot of both officers and men. It is tedious to serve your country by writing down every change in the wind and weather daily from year to year ; monotony, in boarding wellmeaning vessels in which nothing is ever found, and in perpetually patrolling with a spy-glass under your arm. But still it is not laborious monotony. Down this lane one fine April day a man walked, and the knot of loungers at the top of the lane who assembled themselves together in the sun on the bench outside the Leighs' garden wall, forthwith fell to wondering curiously who he might be, and what he might be about to do, for he was not a Houghton man. ' " He's not a friend of the squire's, for he put up at the Bull last night when he come," one of the women said ; " he'd a' been sure to be at the house if the squire knew anything of him."

" And he ain't no friend of Mr. Leigh's," the watchman whom the woman speciallyaddressed replied; "for Mr. Leigh he come out just now, and he says, says he, ' Roberts,' says he, ' have you seen,' he says, ' anyone go down that there lane?' says he, 'any stranger,' he says, 'for,' says he, 'a stranger there is at the Bull,' he says, 'who, I hear, has been asking about drawing the beach;' which prove," Roberts wound up with triumphantly, " that our master knew nothing about him." " Nights ain't fine enough to draw for much good, are they?" the woman asked, for the words " drawing the beach," at Houghton meant dragging the same with nets to which a horse was attached, by which means mighty draughts offish were occasionally caught. " Might be better, and might be ■ worse," Roberts replied, screwing up one eye and looking out of the corner of the other away to the horizon through the glass.

" Well," the woman said sharply, "I only know what my man says, and he knows more about it than all the lot of you put together," — she was a fine smart looking woman, with a brisk voice and a clear eye, and a neat figure. Roberts seemed struck with her statement, and gazed at her with a vague eye of wonder. " All the gentry have to come to my Bob when they want to know anything of that kind," Mrs. Barton went on with a bright laugh; "if that gentleman is wanting to draw the beach, I shall know more about him before the day's over, for he'll have to come to Bob." Then Mrs. Barton collected her troop of children around her, and prepared to depart while the wound her last arrow had made was still quivering. It was quite true, this vaunt that she had made, and the truth of it awakened the seldom sleeping jealousy the rest of the crew of tbe coastguard station felt for Bob Barton, whose knowledge of wild-duck shooting and fish ing had gained him much popularity, and some thing more tangible still, from what his wife de nominated the sporting gentry round.

But before she could execute her purpose and depart, she was arrested by the slamming of the gate round the corner, the gate of the Leighs' garden, and the next moment Lieutenant Leigh himself, with a young lady hanging on his arm, came in sight. He was a fine old sailor, erect and vigorous, but neither rugged nor weather-beaten, as it is the fashion to depict naval officers of a by-gone day. A man who had not been handsome in youth, the friends who knew him in it asserted, but who was a most stately and dignified gentle man now that he was old. As thorough a sailor, as good an officer, as dashing and gallant a man as ever stepped the quarter-deck ; but one who never related his own feats of dashing gallantry — who never swore, or used sea-slang — who had known little of the sweet rewards of merit, and who was only a lieutenant now at sixty, and Theo Leigh's father.

The young lady who leant upon his arm, and whose appearance (for was she not the idol of the " crew ? ") arrested Roberts' eloquence and Mrs. Barton's departure, was Theo her self. Theo had been a pet amongst her father's crew for so long ! just nineteen years had she lived in the world, and amongst themselves they called her " little Miss " still, that bright young lady in whose woman's form a woman's heart beat strongly ! And she knew and cherished and nourished this feeling that the rough sailors and their warm-hearted spouses had for her, and, thoughtless girl as she was, prayed God, that let her be what she might, they might never know or name her as other than " little Miss " and " our Miss Theo." What was she like, this girl who to the slow music of the slamming of a gate, came round the corner into my story ?

She was charming ! that was all. How can another woman hope to make clear why she was so ? She was charming, with none of the bright, blonde, beautiful charm of the North, but with a darker witchery, with a duskier hue — with the deeper, more dangerous, more in tense fire of tbe sleepy, languid, passion-fraught South. Pick her to pieces, anatomise her thoroughly, and she lacked beauty. But who, in the old days when I knew her first, would have picked to pieces that glowing, brilbant, girlish face, or anatomised thoroughly that well-rounded figure that expressed health in every one of its move ments ? Who could have done it then ? The rounded cheek is fallen now, and the bright, merry eye faded from the light of yore, and Theo is a sylph no longer ! But she is Theo still, with the old charm about her that no man (or woman either, for that matter) could resist for long.

For my heroine was not one of those adorable creatures whom women persecute. Many women liked her very much indeed. Saw her faults, and censured them maybe, but liked the girl, their committer, despite them all. She was liked, she was popular, she was thought well of, God knows for what. She was sorely ill-used and sorely tried, God knows why. But on this day, when I show her to you first, the love and popularityand good think ings-of had alone been hers; the trials were " nowhere," in turf parlance : and Theo Leigh was very bright and fresh indeed; as bright and fresh as the spring costume she wore. I wiU paint her portrait for you, with no back ground and no accessories. My heart knows her well, my hand will limn her forth quickly-. I will brighten the high-lights and deepen the shadows in yet unwritten pages ; but the likeness of the girl can be put before you in a paragraph or two.

No fairy, yet rather small ; no sylph, yet rather slight. Cleanly made as to the head and limbs, in fact, which always adds to the look of " breed," while it detracts from the appearance of size. AVith an oval, dark, glowing face, and grey, glowing eyes, and a profusion of wavy hair that was half curl and half disorder, hanging in richly brown masses from underneath her turban hat. On the round of each of these tangled curls of hers there was a ruddy tinge when the sun fell on it, and in the dark, glowing face not one feature, save the mouth, was perfect. Her eyes were very deeply grey, and very full of feeling, of fire, of thought, of the wildest merriment, of the weirdest melancholy. Very full indeed of whatever the girl herself felt at the moment ; brilliantly intel ligent, beautifully expressive and sympathetic ; but not the large gazelle eyes that should be a woman's portion.

They did not look off to the right and left like a hart's or a sheep's ; they glanced out thrillingly at you from very close to her nose on either side. But for all that propin quity and thrill they were not the least bit shrewish or vixenish eyes. I love and admire those shy gazelle orbs very much indeed ; but I never felt that Theo Leigh's could have been more beautiful than they were. Do you remember, reader, what Lancelot says when the Lady of Shalot, victim to unrequited love for him, floats by the palace — dead ? Ah me ! she has a lovely face ; God in his mercy send her grace, prays the man who has destroyed her. A similar feeling found utterance in other words when the stranger whose progress down the lane was commented upon awhile ago caught the first glimpse of Theo Leigh. " I think I should like to have the boat to day, papa," Theo said, after a minute's conversation with Mrs. Barton, during which that good woman had given a risiwmA of the conjectures which had been formed and to which utterance had been given respecting the stranger.

" The tide won't serve till it will be too late for you to be on the water," her father replied. Theo thereat looked sbghtly disappointed. Her young heart was always very warmly set on having the boat when circumstances over which no one had any control forbade the boat being available. " I believe there's water enough in the creek for the Uttle boat, papa. I'll go down the lane and see ; and if there is, Barton wouldn't just mind pulbng me over, would he ? " she con tinued, addressing Barton's wife, who imme diately assured her that " Bob would with all the pleasure in life, if so be he could be spared." Theo released her father's arm now, and sauntered away down the before-mentioned lane. Sauntered slowly, as one is apt to do when the young spring leaves are bathed in bright April sunshine : sunshine that is warm, soft, and tenderly bright as the touch of a maiden's lips, or the first love -light in her eye.

There was something deliciously sympathetic in the atmosphere, in the sunshine, in the hum of recently-born insects, in the fragrance of re-awakening nature, to Theo. She sauntered slowly along down to the marsh-bank that was covered with rushes ; and in the beauty of the day, and the contemplation of the dazzling light the sun threw upon the waters, she forgot her pur pose, and was utterly regardless of the state of the creek. The winter had been an iron-bound one, the earliest spring had been one shrill whistling blast from the east. The memory of these things made this sudden summer heat, which had endured now for four or five days, doubly delightful through the mighty power of con trast. Theo enjoyed warmth — the warmth of the sun, not that of a fire. She expanded under its influence, its fervour went into her soul, and lapped it to a slumber in which the sweetest dreams were hers.

She thoroughly revelled in doing nothing but think — scarcely that, but feel. The girl did not lack energy, but she lacked that peculiar form of it which expresses itself in bustling activity. She had not been stirred into action yet — for life had gone very easily with Miss Theo Leigh — and her appreciation of the dolee far niente was too perfect to be agreeable to her friends. It may be that as the elder daughter of a large family Theo would have been undesirable. But she was not the elder daughter of a large family, happily for herself. She was the sole child of the house and heart of her father, and he saw no wrong in aught that Theo did. She placed herself on the sunny side of the bank of rushes — the side on which she was shel tered from even the light breeze that was up — and thought of what life must be in the lands where the sun always shone, and the sky was always blue.

Of Greece, which she knew by heart, she thought, from Byron's fervid and her father's graphic description ; where the cypress and myrtle wafted their odours and the vultures raged over, and the doves cooed forth their appro bation of that struggle for liberty which termi nated well for Greece, and better for Lord Cochrane than anybody who served under him ; of Italy — very much of Italy — for she loved art and olives, and longed for a sight of blue -ridged mountains, and brigands, and all the other things the South alone could show her. In fact she dreamed a tour that should last for ever, and found the travelling most rarelysweet. The dream was dissolved suddenly, hut not unpleasantly. A step close behind her, a voice at her elbow, a low, soft, deep voice, monotonous even in its sweetness to some ears, the soul of melody to hers, saying : " Pardon me for disturbing you, but is there any possibility of threading the maze of these creeks and gaining the beach ?

" The sound cut short the dream, the old familiar dream, that Theo had dreamt so often, and she woke to life with a bound, hut not to the life she had known before, no, never again to that old peaceful existence. " The beach can only kbe gained by a boat, unless you had mud boots on, and didn't mind walking three or four miles to reach the only point where it is safe to cross the channel," she said, rising to her feet as she spoke. Then as she stood before him, speaking, despite the suddenness of his address, de spite the surprise she could but feel, with the self-possession and kindly courtesy of a gentlewoman, he thought that which resem bled Lancelot's apostrophe to the Lady of Shalot : " She has a sweet, bright face : I hope it will never be clouded." She had dreamt of other things iu her life be- VOL. I. c sides classic Greece and art-fraught Italy.

She had pictured many a hero, built them up as it were from those who were her favourites in romance, and they were all of the cavalier type. Leicester she had loved, though that was a black business, Theo acknowledged, about Amy Rob sart. But about six months since she had stayed at an old grange in Warwickshire, whose walls were covered with Vandycks, and there the grace of Buckingham had made every other kind of masculine beauty seem dull, tame, and unprofit able to ber, and Leicester was less well-loved than of yore. Now before her stood a man who, though he wore a coat of Poole's and a' hat of Andre's, might have walked forth from the canvas Vandyck had covered. No velvet tunic, no clanking sword, were needed to further the illusion. All the Stuart grace was his, and thrice the Stuart beauty.

He was the embodiment of that ideal which the portrait of Buckingham bad first faintly realised. This man who dissipated Theo's earbest dreams was no beardless Apollo on whom the golden glory of youth still hung enraptured. He was a man of forty or more, this first god of her imagination. That lived still in the man's deep steel-blue, black-fringed eyes, that was more to a woman than the laughing light of youth. There was that in the contrast between his unstudied address, his steady, deep tones, and the wonderful earnest ness of his eyes, that thrilled Theo almost before she was conscious of its existence. She took in all : his age, his well-made clothes, the air of high breeding that there was about him, the perfect beauty of bis face and its rarely-refined expres sion, an expression in which hauteur habitually had a share, but there was no hauteur in the eyes that were bent on Theo ; she took in all these things in the one glance she gave him as she quietly answered his question.

Then, when she had answered it, he removed bis hat from the head on which grey curling locks still clustered thickly, and stood bare-headed before ber — a dignified, handsome gentleman, truly ; the very type of some old cavalier family-. " You must allow me to profit by the informac tion you have afforded me," he said, with a certain subdued eagerness in his voice, to which it was rarely pleasant to listen. " I have been hoping for a fair opportunity of introducing my self to Mr. Leigh ; on your authority I shall tell him now that the beach is not to be gained save in one of his boats." " I will introduce you to papa. I am Mr. Leigh's daughter," Theo said animatedly. And then she blushed a little, and laughed a little, and added, " At least, I will tell him your strait, your name I do not know ; hut I'll introduce your difficulty to him, and he will place a boat at your service, I am sure, as soon as ever there is water enough in the creek."

"Perhaps my name maybe famUiar to him," the stranger said, handing Theo a card on which was engraved "Mr. Harold Ffrench." "We were in Greece together, but as I was but an amateur your father very possibly never heard of me, or if he did, has forgotten me." " In Greece with papa ! " Theo exclaimed ; " did you serve with him ? did you serve under Lord Cochrane ? How could you come to Houghton, and know that papa was here, and not give him the great pleasure of seeing an old comrade at once ? " " I may not lay claim to that distinction, Miss Leigh." Mr. Ffrench conveyed a most delicate compliment to the daughter by that allusion to the sire. Theo kindled to it, kindled vividly, but that perhaps she would have done to any thing else uttered by that voice, and rendered doublyeloquent by those eyes.

" I may not lay claim to that distinction, Miss Leigh. I knew your father, certainly, knew him well, as did every one else who was concerned for the liberty of Greece, and interested in the ■organisation of her navy ; but I was, as I tell you, an amateur, and my very name may have escaped your father's memory : have you ever heard him mention it ? " " Never ; did you know the Maid of Athens and Mr. Black ? " " Wasn't Black her husband ? " " Yes ; did you know them ? " "I did not, but I remember hearing your father's name in connection with them. He had them on board his frigate, hadn't he ? " " Yes," Theo replied. They were walking up the lane now, but though she was anxious to bring this stranger face to face with her father, she found it verypleasant to be walking and talking with him alone, — wabcing through the old familiar places which she had known from a child, and talking on that scarcely less familiar theme of which her father never tired.

" Yes, he had them on board the , I forget his ship's name, and he was god-father to their eldest son ; she was fat when papa knew her, a good deal of ber beauty was gone ; but still, do you know, I think there must have been a touch of romance in knowing her, Byron's Maid of Athens, at all." "I think perhaps the romance would have stood a better chance of being unimpaired if he, your father, I mean, hadn't known her fat, and no longer young; there were many romantic affairs that sprang out of that song, Miss Leigh. Byron was not the only Englishman who fancied some roe-eyed Greek to be his life and soul for a time." Then Mr. Ffrench looked down at the bright young girl who walked by his side, glancing up at him occasionally with frank admiring gaze, and as he looked at her his deep blue eyes grew strangely tender, and he thought, " I hope to God her father has not forgotten me."

Bear this recorded aspiration in mind when that which is to follow is recounted. He did devoutly hope that himself and the story of his life might be once known, even if now partially forgotten things, by the father of this girl who had won upon him already, brief as had been their intercourse, by the uudefinable charm of a most profound sympathy. Through all the length of that lane which led from the rush-covered marsh-bank up to the garden-wall where Mr. Leigh still stood, Harold Ffrench hoped it de voutly. When the gate was gained, and Theo Leigh introduced him eagerly to her father, before the latter had time to express astonishment at the sight of his daughter on these friendly terms with a stranger, that hope died out and another sprang into being. For in answer to Theo's " Papa, this gentleman was looking for a way over to the beach; he is Mr. Ffrench, and he remembers you in Greece " — in answer to this there came no light of recognition into the old officer's eyes: "I am heartily glad to renew the acquaintance," he said courteously ; " your name and face have escaped my memory.

I am getting an old man, you see ; walk in, Mr. Ffrench, you are most cordially welcome." As Mr. Ffrench took the other's offered hand, he saw that if ever known he was now entirely forgotten.

Chapter II. The Fruit Of The Sun

It was only natural that the Houghton Bull should see little of Mr. Ffrench after this. Though personally unknown to Theo's father, he still was thoroughly au fait with all that had happened in Greece in '28 and the two following years. "I was just of age when I went to Athens," he said in the course of conversation with Mr. Leigh, " and the first use I made of my nominally perfect liberty was to be off to the seat of the struggle, for everybodywas talking about it just then." When he said that, Theo did a sum on the instant, and the year of my story's opening being that of our first Great Exhibition, arrived at the decision that Mr. Ffrench was forty-four ! almost an old man in Theo's estimation. She sighed to think of it. 2G THEO LEIGH. But soon — before he had been with them an hour — she ceased to think it a matter for sighing.

He charmed them all round, and fairly won the welcome that had been so frankly offered. Mrs. Leigh asked him to stay and dine with them — asked him with such an evident desire that he should accept the invitation, that Theo felt at once that her mamma was carried as quickly and successfully as she herself had been. Her father too was palpably inclining most kindly to one who listened with understanding to his time-honoured stories. " Besides, he hasn't the look and manners of a middle-aged man," thought the girl, as she looked at the slight and graceful figure, and the proudly carried handsome head of this delightful guest. The time-honoured stories, from which, truth to tell, Theo generally fled, gained a new interest now that they were listened to in his company. She threw herself rashly into tbe conversation, and fired off a brisk volley of questions, some of which struck her papa as being slightly irrelevant.

Her papa, in fact, desired to dwell principally on the naval and political aspects of Greece ; Theo wanted to hear something about those other romances to which Mr. Ffrench had alluded. At length they quitted the past and came down to the present. " What finally fixed you in this out-of-the-way place after such a career ? " Mr. Ffrench asked of his host. " Want of interest to get anything better than a coastguard station, and the necessity to take the first thing that offered, no matter how poor that thing was. I was struck off the list for some years in consequence of that Greek affair, and when I was reinstated, I was given to understand that promotion was over for me," Mr. Leigh answered. " That was a bad look-out. " A bad look-out ! — it was a blackguard look out ! " Mr. Leigh cried ; he could not endure to hear gentle mention made of his grievances and ill-treatment at the hands of the Government : they had been many and very hard to bear, and lenient allusion to them was disgusting to him.