Lady Hester | Page 8

reception, so he said in the hall--
"You must remember this is a very sudden shock to us all. When my
father has grown accustomed to the idea, no doubt he will wish to see
you again; but in his present state of health, he must be our first
consideration. And unprepared as my sisters are, it would be impossible
to ask you to stay in the house."
She was always a little subdued by my brother's manner; I think its
courtesy and polish almost frightened her, high-spirited, resolute
woman as she was.
"I understand," she said, with a stiff, cold tone. Jaquetta heard the echo
of it, and wondered.
"But," he added, "when they understand all, and when my father is
equal to it, you shall be sent for."
When he went back to the library he found my poor father unconscious.
It was really only fainting then, and he came round without anyone
being called, and he shrank from seeing anyone but Torwood,
explaining to him most earnestly how, though he was too ill himself to
go to the place, his brother-officer, General Poyntz, had done so for
him, and had been persuaded that the whole settlement and all the
inhabitants had been swept off. It was such a shock to him that it nearly
killed him. Poor father! it was grievous to hear him wish it had quite
done so!

We only knew that the woman had upset my father very much, and that
Torwood could not leave him. Word was sent us to sit down to dinner
without them, and Torwood sent for some gravy soup and some wine
for him. He went on talking--sometimes about us, but more often about
poor Faith, who seemed to have come back on him in all the beauty and
charm of his first love. He seemed to be talking himself feverish, and
after a time Torwood thought that silence would be better for him; so
he got him to go to bed, and sent good old Blake, the butler, who had
been his servant in the army, to sit in the dressing-room. Blake, it
turned out, had known all about the old story, so he was a safe person.
Not that safety mattered much. "Lady Hester Lea"--she called herself
so now, as, indeed, she had every right--was making it known at
Shinglebay.
So Torwood came out. I was very anxious, of course, and had been
hovering about on the nursery stairs, where I had gone to see whether
baby was quietly asleep, and I overtook him as he was going down-
stairs.
"How is papa?" I asked.
I shall never forget the white look of the face he raised up to mine as he
said, "Poor father! Ursula, I can only call the news terrible. Will you try
to stand up against it bravely?"
And then he held out his arms and gathered me into them, and I believe
I said, "I can bear anything when you do that!"
I thought it could only be something about Bertram, who had rather a
way of getting into scrapes, and I said his name; but just as Fulk was
setting me at ease on that score, Jaquetta, who was on the watch, too,
opened the door of the green drawing-room, and we were obliged to go
in. Then, hardly answering her and Emily, as they asked after papa, he
stood straight up in the middle of the rug and told us, beginning with--
"Ursula, did you know that our father had been married as a young man
in Canada?"
No. We had never guessed it.

"He was," my brother went on, "This is his daughter."
"Our sister!" Jaquetta asked. "Where has she been all this time?"
But I saw there must be more to trouble him, and then it came. "I
cannot tell. My father had every reason to believe that--she--his first
wife--had been killed in a massacre by the Red Indians; but if what this
person says is true, she only died two years ago. But it was in all good
faith that he married our mother. He had taken all means to discover--"
Even then we did not perceive what this involved. I felt stunned and
numbed chiefly from seeing the great shock it had been to my father
and to him; but poor little Jaquetta and Emily were altogether puzzled;
and Jaquetta said, "But is this sister of ours such a very disagreeable
person, Torwood? Why didn't you bring her in and show her to us?"
Then he exclaimed, almost angrily at her simplicity, "Good heavens!
girls, don't you see what it all means? If this is true, I am not Torwood.
We are nothing--nobody--nameless."
He turned to the fire, put both elbows on the mantelshelf, and hid his
face