The Ashiel Mystery, Mrs. Charles Bryce [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

landed in Europe; and, while she used to fancy that at the

beginning of the holidays he was glad to see her return, she was much

more firmly convinced that at the end of them he was at least equally

pleased to see her depart.

 

She was nineteen before he realized that she could not be kept at school

for ever; and when he considered the situation, and saw himself, a man

scarcely over forty, saddled with a grown-up girl, who was neither his

own daughter nor that of the woman he had loved, and to whom he had sworn

to care for the child as if she were indeed his own, it must be admitted

that his heart failed him. It was not that he had any aversion to Juliet

herself. He had been fond of the child, and he liked the girl. It was the

awkwardness of his position that filled him with a kind of despair.

 

"If only somebody would marry her!" he thought, as he sat opposite to her

at the dinner-table, on the night that she returned for the last time

from school.

 

The thought cheered him. Juliet, he noticed for the first time, had

become singularly pretty. He engaged a severe Frenchwoman of mature age

as chaperon, and made spasmodic attempts to take his adopted daughter

into such society as the Belgian port, where he was consul at this time,

could afford.

 

It was not a large society; nor did eligible young men figure in it in

any quantity. Those there were, were foreigners, to whom the question of

a _dot_ must be satisfactorily solved before the idea of matrimony would

so much as occur to them.

 

Juliet had no money. Lady Byrne had left her fortune to her husband, and

rash speculations on his part had reduced it to a meagre amount, which he

felt no inclination to part with. Two or three years went by, and she

received no proposals. Sir Arthur's hopes of seeing her provided for grew

faint, and he could imagine no way out of his difficulties. He himself

spent his leave in England, but he never took the girl with him on those

holidays. He had no wish to be called on to explain her presence to such

of his friends as might not remember his wife's whim; and, though she

passed as his daughter abroad, she could not do that at home.

 

Juliet, for her part, was not very well content. She could hardly avoid

knowing that she was looked on as an incubus, and she saw that her

father, as she called him, dreaded to be questioned as to their

relationship. She lived a simple life; rode and played tennis with young

Belgians of her own age; read, worked, went to such dances and

entertainments as were given in the little town, and did not, on the

whole, waste much time puzzling over the mystery that surrounded her

childhood. But when her friends asked her why she never went to England

with Sir Arthur, she did not know what answer to make, and worried

herself in secret about it.

 

Why did he not take her? Because he was ashamed of her? But why was he

ashamed? Her mother--she always thought of Lady Byrne by that name--had

said she was the daughter of a friend of hers. So that she must at least

be the child of people of good family. Was not that enough?

 

She was already twenty-three when Sir Arthur married again. The lady was

an American: Mrs. Clarency Butcher, a good-looking widow of about

thirty-five, with three little girls, of whom the eldest was fifteen. She

had not the enormous wealth which is often one of her countrywomen's most

pleasing attributes, but she was moderately well off and came of a good

Colonial family. Having lived for several years in England, she had grown

to prefer the King's English to the President's, and had dropped, almost

completely, the accent of her native country. She was extremely well

educated, and talked three other languages with equal correctness, her

first husband having been attached to various European legations.

Altogether, she was a charming and attractive woman, and there were many

who envied Sir Arthur for the second time in his life.

 

It was not, perhaps, her fault that she did not take very kindly to

Juliet. The girl resented the place once occupied by her dead mother

being filled by any newcomer; and was not, it is to be feared, at

sufficient pains to hide her feelings on the point. And the second Lady

Byrne was hardly to be blamed if she remembered that in a few years she

would have three daughters of her own to take out, and felt that a fourth

was almost too much of a good thing.

 

Besides, there was no getting over the fact that she was no relation

whatever, and was on the other hand a considerable drain on the family

resources, all of which Lady Byrne felt entirely equal to disbursing

alone and unassisted. Finally, her presence led to disagreements between

Sir Arthur and his wife.

 

The day came on which Lady Byrne could not resist drawing Juliet's

attention to her unfortunate circumstances. In a heated moment, induced

by the girl's refusal to meet her half-way when she was conscious of

having made an unusual effort to be friendly, she pointed out to Juliet

that it would be more becoming in her to show some gratitude to people on

whose charity she was living, and on whom she had absolutely no claim of

blood at all.

 

The interview ended by Juliet flying to Sir Arthur, and begging, while

she wept on his shoulder, to be allowed to go away and work for her

living; though where and how she proposed to do this she did not specify.

 

Sir Arthur had a bad quarter of an hour. His conscience, the knowledge of

the extent to which he shared his second wife's feelings, the remembrance

of the vows he had made on the subject to his first wife, these and the

old, if not very strong, affection he had for Juliet, combined to stir

in him feelings of compunction which showed themselves in an outburst of

irritability. He scolded Juliet; he blamed his wife.

 

"Why," he asked them both, "can two women not live in the same house

without quarrelling? Is it impossible for a wretched man ever to have a

moment's peace?"

 

In the end, he worked himself into such a passion that Lady Byrne and

Juliet were driven to a reconciliation, and found themselves defending

each other against his reproaches.

 

After this they got on better together.

CHAPTER II

 

One hot summer day, a few months after the marriage, Juliet, returning to

the consulate after a morning spent in very active exercise upon a tennis

court, was met on the doorstep by Dora, the youngest of the Clarency

Butchers, who was awaiting her approach in a high state of excitement.

 

"Hurry up, Juliet," she cried, as soon as she could make herself

heard. "You'll never guess what there is for you. Something you don't

often get!"

 

"What is it?" said Juliet, coming up the steps.

 

"Guess!"

 

"A present?"

 

"No; at least I suppose not; but there may be one inside."

 

"Inside? Oh, then it's a parcel?" asked Juliet good-humouredly.

 

She felt a mild curiosity, tempered by the knowledge that many things

provided a thrill for the ten-year-old Dora, which she, from the advanced

age of twenty-three, could not look upon as particularly exciting.

 

"No, not a parcel," cried Dora, dancing round her. "It's a letter.

There now!"

 

"Then why do you say it's something I don't often get?" asked Juliet

suspiciously; "I often get letters. It's an invitation to the Gertignés'

dance, I expect."

 

"No, no, it isn't. It's a letter from England. You don't often get one

from there, now, do you? You never did before since we've been here. I

always examine your letters, you know," said Dora, "to see if they look

as if they came from young men. So does Margaret. We think it's time you

got engaged."

 

Margaret was the next sister.

 

"It's very good of you to take such an interest in my fate," Juliet

replied, as she pulled off her gloves and went to the side-table for the

letter. As a matter of fact she was a good deal excited now; for what the

child said was true enough. She might even have gone further, and said

that she had never had a letter from England, except while Sir Arthur was

there on leave.

 

It was a large envelope, addressed in a clerk's handwriting, and she came

to the conclusion, as she tore it open, that it must be an advertisement

from some shop.

 

 

"DEAR MADAM,--We shall esteem it a favour if you can make it convenient

to call upon us one day next week, upon a matter of business connected

with a member of your family. It is impossible to give you further

details in a letter; but if you will grant us the interview we venture to

ask, we may go so far as to say that there appears to us to be a

reasonable probability of the result being of advantage to yourself.

Trusting that you will let us have an immediate reply, in which you will

kindly name the day and hour when we may expect to see you.--We are,

yours faithfully,

 

"FINDLAY & INCE, _Solicitors_."

 

The address was a street in Holborn.

 

Juliet read the letter through, and straightway read it through again,

with a beating heart. What did it mean? Was it possible she was going to

find her own family at last?

 

She was recalled to the present by the voice of Dora, whom she now

perceived to be reading the letter over her shoulder with

unblushing interest.

 

"Say," said Dora, "isn't it exciting? 'Something to your advantage!' Just

what they put in the agony column when they leave you a fortune. I bet

your long-lost uncle in the West has kicked the bucket, and left you all

his ill-gotten gains. Mark my words. You'll come back from England a

lovely heiress. I do wish the others would come in. There's no one in the

house, except Sir Arthur."

 

"Where is he?" said Juliet, putting the sheet of paper back into the

envelope and slipping it under her waistband. "You know, Dora, it's not

at all a nice thing to read other people's letters. I wonder you aren't

ashamed of yourself. I'm surprised at you."

 

"I shouldn't have read it if you'd been quicker about telling me what was

in it," retorted Dora. "It's not at all a nice thing to put temptation in

the way of a little girl like me. Do you suppose I'm made of cast iron?"

 

She departed with an injured air, and Juliet went to look for the consul.

 

"What is it?" he asked, as she put the envelope into his hand. "A letter

you want me to read? Not a proposal, eh?" He smiled at her as he unfolded

the large sheet of office paper.

 

"Hullo, what's this?"

 

He read it through carefully.

 

"Why, Juliet," he said, when he had finished, "this is very interesting,

isn't it? It looks as if you were going to find out something about

yourself, doesn't it? After all these years! Well, well."

 

"You think I must go, then," she said a little doubtfully.

 

"Go? Of course I should go, if I were you. Why not?"

 

"You don't think it is a hoax?"

 

"No, no; I see no reason to suppose such a thing. I know the firm of

Findlay & Ince quite well by name and reputation."

 

"Oh, I hope they will tell me who I am!" cried Juliet. "Have you no idea

at all, father?"

 

"No, my dear, you know I have not. Besides, I promised Lena I would never

ask. You are the child of a friend of hers. That is all I know. I think

she scarcely realized how hard it would be for you not to know more when

you grew up. I often think that if she had lived she would have told you

before now."

 

"If you promised her not to ask,