A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette

"The most marvelously beautiful creature; fairly angelic."

A few weeks later, in November, the bishop was dining with the Duke of Downsbury, and bethought himself to tell the tale, beginning:

"Does not the village of Brakebury belong entirely to your grace? and is not Mark Brace one of your tenant farmers?"

The bishop told the story, as he told every story, admirably.

"And they have no clew to the child's family," asked the duchess.

"Not the least. It was the most cleverly-managed thing I ever heard of in my life."

When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, Lady Estelle Hereford, the duke's only child, asked her mother:

"What was that story the bishop was telling?"

Lady Estelle was not nineteen. Her mother felt that this tale of a foundling was not a proper thing to pour into the ear of innocence.

"Really, my dear, I was shocked at the bishop's speaking of such a thing before you," said her Grace of Downsbury.

"Why, mamma, there may be nothing really wrong about it after all," said Lady Estelle, quietly, and the duchess privately thanked Heaven for her daughter's simplicity.

"There is always some wrong where there is concealment," said the duchess, with decision. "Honor does not shun the day. I prefer you do not talk of it, Estelle."

"But, dear mamma, I want to know. So little happens here in the country, I hoped it was something to interest me."

"No, my dear. Only a little child, left at Mark Brace's door – with some money – and I think that is all, my dear."

"And Mark Brace is going to keep the child, mamma?"

"So I understand. Very admirable, honest people, the Braces."

"It is just like a novel, mamma – nicer than a written one. I am sick of novels, as I am sick of everything. I would like to see that child, if it is so pretty, mamma."

"My dearest love! But Brackenside is fifteen miles off, and you could not go so far in this chill autumn weather. You know the doctor says you must get to Italy at once."

Lady Estelle leaned back as one completely bored and weary of life, and toyed with her fan and flowers. A beauty, an heiress, a duke's daughter, Lady Estelle had been for a year and a half the idol of the most fashionable circle in London. Proud, stately, cold, calm, with sudden gleams of tenderness and fire in her great violet eyes, she had been courted by some of the noblest men of England, and dismissed each with the same indifference. But the excitement of gay life, or a nervous shock received in traveling with her friend, Lady Agnes Delapain, in Switzerland, had stolen the wild-rose tint from her cheek and the elasticity from her graceful step, and baffled physicians ordered her to be taken to a warmer climate.

"I am sorry to lose you again, Lady Hereford," said the bishop, when the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room.

"Thank you. But I am rather glad to go. I may find in Italy something to amuse me, or wake my cold, calm soul to romance. Here, it seems to me, it is very dull. Only the little incident that you told to-day rises over the prosaic."

Lady Estelle, with a swift glance, assured herself that the duchess was at the most remote corner of the room.

"Ah, yes, that has a flavor of romance," said the bishop.

"And you say the child is healthy and pretty?"

"Both, I am told, to an unusual degree. It has the fatal gift of beauty."

"Why fatal?" asked Lady Estelle, with listless politeness.

"Not fatal to those born to rank, parents, and every care, but fatal to the poor, the unprotected, the unknown. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."

"I never thought of that," said Lady Estelle, and then her brief interest in the little child seemed to pass into the gentle indifference with which she regarded all the events of life.

For hours afterward Lady Estelle Hereford thought of the fair foundling that had been left at Brackenside Farm, and an uneasy feeling came over her as she reflected upon the bishop's words:

"The child possesses the fatal gift of beauty. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."

CHAPTER IV

THE MARBLE PSYCHE

Mark Brace was the tenant of the Duke of Downsbury, as his fathers before him had for many generations been the tenants of the duke's ancestors; yet no two lines of life seemed to run farther apart than those of the duke and the farmer. The duke respected and appreciated his tenant, and the tenant sturdily held loyal faith in his duke, as the noblest duke in England.

Yet, when Downsbury Castle was shut up, and all the family were abroad, seeking, year by year, health for the patrician daughter, that absence of the noble patron made no change in the current of life at the farm. Patty and Mark, when the duke came to their minds, hoped he would find for his only child the health he sought.

"How we should feel if our Mattie was delicate!" said Patty.

"What a pity it is," said Mark, "that the duke has no son. He has hoped and hoped, but now he knows he will be the last Duke of Downsbury."

"But Lady Estelle will get strong, perhaps, and marry, and he will have great comfort in his grandchildren," said Patty.

Meanwhile, at Brackenside Farm, little Doris grew every day in beauty and brightness. Never was such a winsome wee thing. Patty felt sure the saucy blue eyes would count many victims when Doris bloomed into girlhood's beauty. Patty was tender of her charge, as of some strange tropic bird that had fluttered into her homely nest. Mattie, with her frank simplicity, adored, waited on, yielded to, her "little sister." Honest Mark fell a complete slave to the fascinations of her beauty: he could not give a severe look, nor a reproving word: the twining of those dimpled arms around his neck brought instant submission to any whim of Miss Doris.

"Mark, Mark, you are like all the men – you think the world and all of a pretty face," said Patty, laughing.

"She's just a wonder, and I can't cross her," said Mark. "Not but I like Mattie best. You can rely on Mattie, somehow: she's worth twenty of this pretty Doris; but I can say 'no' to her, and I can try to train her up to be a good woman; but this little golden and pearly thing is just like a butterfly or a humming-bird to me, that's a fact. And then, Patty, we have had luck ever since she came; her hands brought us blessings."

Was it any wonder that it came about that when one child was to yield to the other, Mattie yielded to Doris? Mattie was older and stronger, and, truth to say, yielded more readily. If Patty called on a child to help her, to pick up toys, or a spool, or run to call Mark, was it not natural that Mattie, true, industrious child of the house, was the one called on, rather than the child who paid a hundred pounds a year? Was it strange that, thinking of that lady-mother, who might any day come to claim her own, Patty protected the snowy beauty of her nurse-child with nankeen mitts, and sleeves, and wide-brimmed hat? Did it seem less than honest, when one considered that yearly hundred pounds, and the gentle birth, to give the child finer shoes and daintier garments than little Mattie had?

Thus it came about that pride, and vanity, and indolence, and imperious self-will, were nursed insensibly in this child, whose soul Patty greatly desired to keep white and pure.

Mark Brace, too, felt the duties that the yearly payment pressed upon him. When Doris was three years and a half old, he said to his wife:

"We must make her mannerly, lest her mother should not be satisfied. When she gets big she must learn music and languages; now she must learn to sew and to read. We will let our Mattie learn what she does. She is our only child; we can afford it."

"And you mean me to teach them?" asked Patty.

"Oh, no, wife. You are too busy. We will send them every day to Brakebury, to the Misses Hopwell."

The Misses Hopwell were very genteel ladies; a surgeon's daughters, fallen into narrow circumstances, and keeping a little school, very genteel indeed, where they taught the making of samplers, the tables, reading, writing, the globes, etc., in prim, old-fashioned style.

To this "ladies' school" went Mattie and Doris every day, in a little wicker cart, drawn by a donkey, beside which ran a bare-foot farm-boy as their charioteer. And so time went on, and Doris had been four years at the farm, and news now spread abroad that Lady Estelle Hereford was better at last, and the duke was coming home.

Back to England finally, and the castle was filled with guests.

"I believe," said the duchess to the duke, "that the best thing for our daughter would be a happy marriage. She is over twenty-two. If we could rouse her up to take any interest in any one – all she lacks is animation. She is a Psyche before the coming of Cupid. I heard a gentleman in Italy calling her 'the marble Psyche,' speaking to a friend."