Lady Hester; Or, Ursula's Narrative Read online

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  LADY HESTER;

  OR,

  URSULA'S NARRATIVE.

  by

  CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER I. SAULT ST. PIERRE

  CHAPTER II. TREVORSHAM

  CHAPTER III. THE PEERAGE CASE

  CHAPTER IV. SKIMPING'S FARM

  CHAPTER V. SPINNEY LAWN

  CHAPTER VI. THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING

  CHAPTER VII. HUNTING

  CHAPTER VIII. DUCK SHOOTING

  CHAPTER IX. TREVOR'S LEGACY

  CHAPTER I.

  SAULT ST. PIERRE.

  I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any reportsof our strange family history should come down to after generations thething may be properly understood.

  The old times at Trevorsham seem to me so remote, that I can hardlybelieve that we are the same who were so happy then. Nay, Jaquettalaughs, and declares that it is not possible to be happier than we havebeen since, and Fulk would have me remember that all was not alwayssmooth even in those days.

  Perhaps not--for him, at least, dear fellow, in those latter times; butwhen I think of the old home, the worst troubles that rise before meare those of the back-board and the stocks, French in the school-room,and Miss Simmonds' "Lady Ursula, think of your position!"

  And as to Jaquetta, she was born under a more benignant star. Nobodycould have put a back-board on her any more than on a kitten.

  Our mother had died (oh! how happily for herself!) when Jaquetta was ababy, and Miss Simmonds most carefully ruled not only over us, but overAdela Brainerd, my father's ward, who was brought up with us becauseshe had no other relation in the world.

  Besides, my father wished her to marry one of my brothers. It wouldhave done very well for either Torwood or Bertram, but unluckily, as itseemed, neither of them could take to the notion. She was a dearlittle thing, to be sure, and we were all very fond of her; but, asBertram said, it would have been like marrying Jaquetta, and Torwoodhad other views, to which my father would not then listen.

  Then Bertram's regiment was ordered to Canada, and that was the realcause of it all, though we did not know it till long after.

  Bertram was starting out on a sporting expedition with a Canadiangentleman, when about ten miles from Montreal they halted at a farmwith a good well-built house, named Sault St. Pierre, all lookingprosperous and comfortable, and a young farmer, American in hisways--free-spoken, familiar, and blunt--but very kindly and friendly,was at work there with some French-Canadian labourers.

  Bertram's friend knew him and often halted there on huntingexpeditions, so they went into the house--very nicely furnished, apretty parlour with muslin curtains, a piano, and everything pleasant;and Joel Lea called his wife, a handsome, fair young woman. Bertramsays from the first she put him in mind of some one, and he was tryingto make out who it could be. Then came the wife's mother, a neatlittle delicate, bent woman, with dark eyes, that looked, Bertram said,as if they had had some great fright and never recovered it. Theycalled her Mrs. Dayman.

  She was silent at first, and only helped her daughter and the maid toget the dinner, and an excellent dinner it was; but she kept on lookingat Bertram, and she quite started when she heard him called Mr. Trevor.When they were just rising up, and going to take leave, she came up tohim in a frightened agitated manner, as if she could not help it, andsaid--

  "Sir, you are so like a gentleman I once knew. Was any relation ofyours ever in Canada?"

  "My father was in Canada," answered Bertram.

  "Oh no," she said then, very much affected, "the Captain Trevor I knewwas killed in the Lake Campaign in 1814. It must be a mistake, yet youput me in mind of him so strangely."

  Then Bertram protested that she must mean my father, for that he hadbeen a captain in the --th, and had been stationed at York (as Torontowas then called), but was badly wounded in repulsing the Americanattack on the Lakes in 1814.

  "Not dead?" she asked, with her cheeks getting pale, and a sort ofexcitement about her, that made Bertram wonder, at the moment, if therecould have been any old attachment between them, and he explained howmy father was shipped off from England between life and death; and how,when he recovered, he found his uncle dying, and the title and propertycoming to him.

  "And he married!" she said, with a bewildered look; and Bertram toldher that he had married Lady Mary Lupton--as his uncle and father hadwished--and how we four were their children. I can fancy how kindlyand tenderly Bertram would speak when he saw that she was anxious andpained; and she took hold of his hand and held him, and when he saidsomething of mentioning that he had seen her, she cried out with a sortof terror, "Oh no, no, Mr. Trevor, I beg you will not. Let him thinkme dead, as I thought him." And then she drew down Bertram's tall headto her, and fairly kissed his forehead, adding, "I could not help it,sir; an old woman's kiss will do you no harm!"

  Then he went away. He never did tell us of the meeting till longafter. He was not a great letter writer, and, besides, he thought myfather might not wish to have the flirtations of his youth brought upagainst him. So we little knew!

  But it seems that the daughter and son-in-law were just as much amazedas Bertram, and when he was gone, and the poor old lady sank into herchair and burst out crying, and as they came and asked who or what thiswas, she sobbed out, "Your brother Hester! Oh! so like him--myhusband!" or something to that effect, as unawares. She wanted to takeit back again, but of course Hester would not let her, and made hertell the whole.

  It seems that her name was Faith Le Blanc; she was half English, halfFrench-Canadian, and lived in a village in a very unsettled part, whereCaptain Trevor used to come to hunt, and where he made love to her, andended by marrying her--with the knowledge of her family and his brotherofficers, but not of his family--just before he was ordered to the Lakefrontier. The war had stirred up the Indians to acts of violence theyhad not committed for many years, and a tribe of them came down on thevillage, plundering, burning, killing, and torturing those whom theyhad known in friendly intercourse.

  Faith Le Blanc had once given some milk to a papoose upon its mother'sback, and perhaps for this reason she was spared, but everyonebelonging to her was, she believed, destroyed, and she was carried awayby the tribe, who wanted to make her one of themselves; and she knewthat if she offended them, such horrors as she had seen practised onothers would come on her.

  However, they had gone to another resort of theirs, where there was ayoung hunter who often visited them, and was on friendly terms. Whenhe found that there was a white woman living as a captive among them,he spared no effort to rescue her. Both he and she were often inexceeding danger; but he contrived her escape at last, and brought herthrough the woods to a place of safety, and there her child was born.

  It was over the American frontier, and it was long before she couldwrite to her husband. She never knew what became of her letter, butthe hunter friend, Piers Dayman, showed her an American paper whichmentioned Captain Trevor among the officers killed in their attack.Dayman was devoted to her, and insisted on marrying her, and bringingup her daughter as his own. I fancy she was a woman of gentle passivetemper, and had been crushed and terrified by all she had gone through,so as to have little instinct left but that of clinging to theprotector who had taken her up when she had lost everything else; andshe married him. Nor did Hester guess till that very day that PiersDayman was not her father!

  There were other children, sons who have given themselves to huntingand trapping in the Hudson's Bay Company's territory; but Hesterremained the only daughter, and they educated her well, sendi
ng her toa convent at Montreal, where she learnt a good many accomplishments.They were not Roman Catholics; but it was the only way of getting aneducation.

  Dayman must have been a warm-hearted, tenderly affectionate person.Hester loved him very much. But he had lived a wild sportsman's life,and never was happy at rest. They changed home often; and at last hewas snowed up and frozen to death, with one of his boys, on a bearhunting expedition.

  Not very long after, Hester married this sturdy American, Joel Lea, whohad bought some land on the Canadian side of the border, and her mothercame home to live with them. They had been married four or five years,but none of their children had lived.

  So it was when the discovery came upon poor old Mrs. Dayman (I do notknow what else to call her), that Fulk Torwood Trevor, the husband ofher youth, was not dead, but was Earl of Trevorsham; married, and thefather of four children in England.

  Poor old thing! She would have buried her secret to the last, as muchin pity and love to him as in shame and grief for herself; andconsideration, too, for the sons, for whom the discovery was only lessbad than for us, as they had less to lose. Hester herself hardly fullyunderstood what it all involved, and it only gradually grew on her.

  That winter her mother fell ill, and Mr. Lea felt it right that thesmall property she had had for her life should be properly secured toher sons, according to the division their father had intended. So alawyer was brought from Montreal and her will was made. Thus anotherperson knew about it, and he was much struck, and explained to Hesterthat she was really a lady of rank, and probably the only child of herfather who had any legal claim to his estates. Lea, with a good dealof the old American Republican temper, would not be stirred up. Hedespised lords and ladies, and would none of it; but the lawyer heldthat it would be doing wrong not to preserve the record. Hester hadgrown excited, and seconded him; and one day, when Lea was out, thelawyer brought a magistrate to take Mrs. Dayman's affidavit as to allher past history--marriage witnesses and all. She was a good dealovercome and agitated, and quite implored Hester never to use theknowledge against her father; but she must have been always a passive,docile being, and they made her tell all that was wanted, and sign herdeposition, as she had signed her will, as Faith Trevor, commonly knownas Faith Dayman.

  She did not live many days after. It was on the 3rd of February, 1836,that she died; and in the course of the summer Hester had a son, whothrove as none of her babies had done.

  Then she lay and brooded over him and the rights she fancied he wasdeprived of, till she worked herself up to a strong and fixed purpose,and insisted upon making all known to her father. Now that her motherwas gone she persuaded herself that he had been a cruel, faithlesstyrant, who had wilfully deserted his young wife.

  Joel Lea would not listen to her. Why should she wish to make his sona good-for-nothing English lord? That was his view. Nothing butmisery, distress, and temptation could come of not letting thingsalone. He held to that, and there were no means forthcoming either ofcoming to England to present herself. The family were well to do, buthad no ready money to lay out on a passage across the Atlantic. Norwould Hester wait. She had persuaded herself that a letter would besuppressed, even if she had known how to address it; but to claim herson's rights, and make an earl of him, had become her fixed idea, andshe began laying aside every farthing in her power.

  In this she was encouraged, not by the lawyer who had made thewill--and who, considering that poor Faith's witnesses had beendestroyed, and her certificate and her wedding ring taken from her bythe Indians, thought that the marriage could not be substantiated--butby a clever young clerk, who had managed to find out the state ofthings; a man named Perrault, who used to come to the farm, always whenLea was out, and talk her into a further state of excitement about herchild's expectations, and the injuries she was suffering. It was herone idea. She says she really believes she should have gone mad if thesaving had not occupied her; and a very dreary life poor Joel must havehad whilst she was scraping together the passage-money. He stillsteadily and sternly disapproved the whole, and when at two years' endshe had put together enough to bring her and her boy home, and maintainthem there for a few weeks, he still refused to go with her. The lastthing he said was, "Remember, Hester, what was the price of all thekingdoms of the world! Thou wilt have it, then! Would that I couldsay, my blessing go with thee." And he took his child, and held himlong in his arms, and never spoke one word over him but, "My poor boy!"