Claire ]Biwid6n 
 
 Fl^DERICK MAf^HMlih
 
 LI B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 M35G2c
 
 CLAIRE BEANDON
 
 CLAIRE BEAN DON 
 
 A NO VEL 
 
 BY 
 
 FEEDEEICK MAESHALL 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' FRENCH HOME-LIFE,' ETC. 
 
 IX THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKV^^OOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AXD LONDON 
 
 ^I D C C C X C 
 
 All Rights reserved
 
 8S3 
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDON 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 Ox the afternoon of the 2d February 1862, 
 
 Miss Harriet Brandon was sitting alone in the 
 
 drawing-room of her cottage at Hurley. Her 
 
 long, angular person was dressed in thick 
 
 ^ black silk. Her features were regular ; her 
 
 "^ complexion was fresh ; her expression was 
 
 U frank, generous, and rough. There was a 
 
 "^ distinct manifestation about her of the desire 
 
 J to be correct and dignified, and, mixed up with 
 
 rit, there was an irrepressible goodness and a 
 
 o detonating abruptness which contradicted the 
 
 ^ correct dignity. Her movements were some- 
 
 ^ what hard and ungraceful, but yet she was un- 
 
 j mistakably a lady. She had even, at certain 
 
 moments, a marked distinction of bearing. 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 That afternoon she was out of temper, as 
 happened to her frequently. Forty years of 
 life had not calmed her tumultuous nature, 
 and she had acquired amongst her neighbours 
 the reputation of being as stormy as she was 
 good, as explosive as she was free - hearted. 
 She tried to read, but could not fix her atten- 
 tion, and pushed away the book. She poked 
 the fire impatiently, and then sat and stared 
 at it as if she expected peace of mind to issue 
 from the smoke. While staring she heard 
 wheels on the road outside. Half a minute 
 later a carriage stopped at her door. She 
 supposed a visitor was coming, so she hastily 
 smoothed down her dress, tried, though with 
 less success, to smooth down her face, and 
 waited for the visitor to be announced. Vague 
 sounds of talk reached her ears from the hall, 
 but two minutes passed before a maid-servant 
 opened the door and said — 
 
 ''Please, ma'am, there is a foreign woman 
 come in a fly from the station, and Morris's 
 boy has brought her, and she has a baby with 
 her, and I can't make out what she says, but 
 she talks a great deal." 
 
 Miss Brandon looked at the maid and asked
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 3 
 
 her ^Yitll as much indifference as she could 
 command, ''Is she a respectable person ? " 
 
 "Well, ma'am," answered the maid, ''I 
 shouldn't say she looks respectable, because 
 she hasn't a bonnet. Only she seems decent, 
 and I think she is tired, and she has o-ot two 
 boxes on the fly." 
 
 " For whom does she ask \ " inquired Miss 
 Brandon. 
 
 " I can't understand her," was the reply. 
 
 Thereupon Miss Brandon got up and walked 
 into the hall. 
 
 Standing there, with a child in her arms, 
 was a middle-sized woman, wearing; a dark 
 shawl and dress, and a white muslin cap with 
 white strings tied under her chin. Behind 
 her was Morris's boy. As soon as the woman 
 saw Miss Brandon she advanced eagerly to- 
 wards her and asked in French, "Are you 
 Miss Brandon ? " 
 
 It fortunately happened that Miss Brandon 
 was able to speak French — not well, but suf- 
 ficiently to understand and answer. So she 
 replied, '' Yes, I am Miss Brandon. What do 
 you want ? " 
 
 The woman exclaimed with evident relief —
 
 4 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 " Oh, mademoiselle, I have come a long way 
 with the child. Poor child ! And I am so 
 glad to get here. The Colonel, he died at 
 Lisbon. That is where I have come from. 
 Only, Henry ought to have been with me ; but 
 he missed the steamer, and I have come alone. 
 Henry, that is the Colonel's servant, made- 
 moiselle. And I don't know how I got here. 
 The Colonel, before he died, he told us both 
 to come to his uncle and to mademoiselle, and 
 to bring the child to you. And this is the 
 child. Dear little child ! " And she kissed 
 it with much affection, and held it out for 
 Miss Brandon to see. 
 
 Miss Brandon had listened to this speech 
 with a stupefaction which had turned suddenly 
 into a chill terror. 
 
 " The Colonel, he died at Lisbon ! " 
 
 Could that mean that her brother, Colonel 
 Charles Brandon, was dead ? 
 
 She had not heard of him for a long time ; 
 she had no reason to suppose that he was ill ; 
 and though, for many years, she had only seen 
 him at rare intervals, and had not kept up 
 regular correspondence with him, she had a 
 sincere attachment to him. So the sudden
 
 CLAIRE BKAXDOX. 5 
 
 declaration made by the strange woman, com- 
 ing, as it did, in the midst of one of her 
 attacks of temper, made her heart beat and 
 took her breath away, and it was almost with 
 a sense of personal wrong being done to her 
 that she cried out, " What colonel ? Was it 
 Colonel Charles Brandon ? Was it my brother ? 
 And what child is this ? And what does it all 
 mean ? Who are you ? " 
 
 Miss Brandon seized a hall chair and sat 
 down heavily, and her eyes filled with tears as 
 she stared at the stranger. 
 
 "Yes," answered the woman, "it was the 
 Colonel, my master, and this is his child. His 
 name was Charles. That is true. It was a 
 wound he had in a battle, that opened again, 
 below his arm, because he had a fall at 
 Cintra ; and they brought him back very bad 
 to Lisbon, to the hotel ; and he could not 
 write because he was ill and weak and his 
 hand was hurt in the fall, so Henry wrote two 
 letters for him and the Colonel signed them. 
 And Henry took one of them — that one was 
 for General Brandon — and there were papers 
 put into it that were in a red box belonging 
 to the Colonel ; I saw that ; and the Colonel
 
 6 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 gave me the other one ; and after he was dead 
 and buried, Henry took places for himself and 
 me in a steamer to come to England, as the 
 Colonel told us to do, to bring the letters and 
 the child. After Henry had put me and the 
 child and the luggage on board, he returned 
 on shore again to fetch something he had for- 
 gotten. I went to bed with the child, and 
 then I was awoke by the steamer moving and 
 making a noise, and I was very ill. A woman 
 came and helped me with the child. Two 
 days afterwards I got better, and I was able 
 to go on deck, and I looked for Henry. But 
 I could not see him. And I found some one 
 to speak for me, and I inquired, and was told 
 that Henry had not come on board again, and 
 that the steamer could not wait, and had 
 started without him. So I cried, and I cried 
 for a long time, for I was all alone there with 
 the child. There were some people who were 
 very kind to me, and spoke to me, and tried to 
 comfort me, and said that Henry would come 
 by the next steamer. And I told them the 
 Colonel was dead, and that I was taking the 
 child to the family. So when we reached the 
 port — Southampton it was — the kind people 
 changed my money for me — it was my own
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 7 
 
 money, mademoiselle, for Henry had got the 
 Colonel's money — and put me into the train, 
 and gave me a piece of paper with the name 
 and address of mademoiselle which were on 
 the letter, and told the guard about me, and 
 he made me get out at the station, and then 
 the station-master looked at the paper and got 
 the boxes for me, and spoke to a boy that was 
 there — this boy — and he put me into a 
 carriage, and the boy brought me here. This 
 is the child." And she began to cry. 
 
 The woman had poured out this long speech 
 with extreme rapidity and growing agitation. 
 It was clear that she had gone through strong 
 emotions, and was so much upset that her head 
 was not quite clear. But Miss Brandon was 
 far too excited herself to think of any one else. 
 She had listened to the story with intense 
 attention, but yet with an almost irresistible 
 longing to interrupt and to ask questions. So, 
 the moment the woman stopped. Miss Brandon 
 jumped oflf her chair, rushed close up to her, 
 and staring her in the face as if she were an 
 enemy, gasped out a string of disconnected 
 interrogatories, which were rendered almost 
 incomprehensible by the insufficiency of her 
 French.
 
 8 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 " Why is my brother dead 1 And how do I 
 know that he is dead ? Who are you that I 
 should believe you ? And when did he die ? 
 Oh, when did he die ? Who was with him at 
 his last moments ? When will the other ser- 
 vant arrive ? But you said you had a letter 
 for me from my brother. Where is that 
 letter '? Are you an impostor 1 " 
 
 The woman listened, and it was plain that 
 she tried to understand ; but the word " letter " 
 was the only one that seemed to strike her, for, 
 without answering one word to the dishevelled 
 questions flung at her, she clutched the child 
 with her left arm, put her right hand into her 
 pocket and drew out, after some fumbling, a 
 little parcel tied in a piece of newspaper. 
 
 Miss Brandon instantly snatched it from her, 
 and, with trembling hands, tore ofi" the paper. 
 Inside she found a letter addressed to 
 
 Miss Brandon, 
 
 
 Hurley, 
 
 
 near 
 
 Lorston, 
 
 
 Hants,
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 9 
 
 111 excitement which almost prevented her 
 from seeing clear, she broke open the envelope^ 
 pulled out the letter, and read the following 
 words : — 
 
 " Lisbon, Braganza Hotel, 
 l~th January 1862. 
 
 " My dear Sister, — j\Jy wound has opened 
 again, from a fall ; my lungs have become con- 
 gested, and I fear I shall not recover. 
 
 " As I am unable to write myself, I dictate 
 this to Henry Blaine, my old servant, in whom 
 I have entire confidence. 
 
 *' I have to confess to you that I was mar- 
 ried, three years ago, to a French lady. I have 
 not acknowledged it, because my uncle's feel- 
 ings against foreigners and Eoman Catholics 
 are so strong. 
 
 " At the end of twelve months of happiness 
 my wife died, in giving birth to a child. 
 
 " My wife had no relations. There was no 
 one to whom I could confide the child. Nor, 
 indeed, did I wish to part from it. So I wan- 
 dered about the Continent, writing from time 
 to time to my uocle to say that I was coming 
 home soon. The truth was that I was in ex-
 
 10 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 treme sadness and in failing health. I came 
 here for the winter, with my child. 
 
 " All I can do now is to bequeath the 
 child to your care. Be good to her, for my 
 sake. 
 
 " She is called Claire — her mother's name. 
 She must be brought up as a Roman Cath- 
 olic, because I pledged myself to that when 
 I married. 
 
 " This will be given to you by Berthe, the 
 nurse, who is a kind woman. 
 
 " I send another letter, with all the papers 
 and particulars of my marriage, by Henry, to 
 my uncle. I ask my uncle to forgive me and 
 to adopt my child. 
 
 " Farewell, my dear sister. 
 
 " May God bless you and my poor child. — 
 Your most affectionate brother, 
 
 " Charles Brandon." 
 
 AYhen Miss Brandon got to the end of the 
 letter, she dropped her hands and looked si- 
 lently at the ground. She was so dazed that 
 she was incapable of thinking. But, after a 
 moment, her natural excitability burst out 
 again, and she turned, almost angrily, to the
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 11 
 
 nurse, exclaiming, "Yon have not shown me 
 the child. Show her to me." 
 
 The woman raised her towards Miss Bran- 
 don. The child looked, hesitated, and then 
 stretched out her little hand and took hold of 
 Miss Brandon's chin. 
 
 This was too much for the poor lady's nerves. 
 She burst violently into tears (she did every- 
 thing with vehemence, even crying), seized 
 the child, covered it with kisses, and dashed off 
 with it suddenly to the drawing-room, calling 
 to the nurse to follow her. Fortunately the 
 child did not complain, and remained quiet. 
 Miss Brandon caressed her awkwardly, mut- 
 tered some inaudible words which were meant 
 to be affectionate, and then, twisting sharply 
 round, said, half hysterically, '' Now sit down 
 there and tell me all about it. I don't under- 
 stand at all. When did he marry ? Who was 
 his wife 1 Why did he tell me nothing '? How 
 long was he ill ? What did he say your name 
 is?" 
 
 The answer came in language almost as 
 excited as that in which the questions were 
 put : "I have never seen the mother. I only 
 entered the Colonel's service after her death.
 
 12 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 I know nothing about her. Nobody told me 
 anything. Henry is coming and will explain, 
 for he knows." 
 
 *' But I can't wait/' replied Miss Brandon, 
 almost shouting in her emotion. " I must 
 know at once. It is all so sudden and so 
 strange. Now tell me all you do know." 
 
 " Well, mademoiselle, I took the child a 
 year ago last month, when she was weaned. 
 The Colonel was at Versailles then. He sent 
 away the wet nurse before I came, so I had no 
 talk with her. We travelled to several places, 
 and went to Lisbon for the winter^ because the 
 Colonel had a cough. He loved the child very 
 much, and used to hold it on his knee and 
 whisper to it in English. He was always very 
 sad, and Henry told me he had never got over 
 madame's death, and that he never would. 
 But Henry could speak only a few words of 
 French, and I don't think he liked to talk to 
 me about it. Perhaps the Colonel told him 
 not to do so. And I asked no questions, and I 
 never heard anything at all, except that madanie 
 had died in France when the baby was born." 
 
 " This is all very strange," said Miss Bran- 
 don, disappointed and vexed at the absence of
 
 CLAIEE BRANDON. 13 
 
 immediate information. Very strange. And 
 so horribly sudden. I must consult my uncle. 
 How angry he will be ! I am quite afraid to 
 let him know. But I must. I suppose you 
 had better put the child to bed. I will tell 
 the housemaid to sit with it while you have 
 something to eat. Of course you will stop 
 here for the present." 
 
 Miss Brandon rang, and ordered that the 
 flyman should be paid, the luggage brought 
 in, and a room got ready for the nurse and 
 child, whom she sent up-stairs. When that 
 was arranged she sat down, with much appre- 
 hension, and wrote to General Brandon, who 
 lived a mile off, at Hurley Park, begging him 
 to come over to her as soon as possible. Then 
 she read her brother's letter again, cried over 
 it, and muttered — '' Poor Charles ! How could 
 he do so ! And how sad for him to die all 
 alone, so far away ! And this poor little child ! 
 How sad ! how sad ! And I shall have to 
 bring her up ; I, who know nothing about 
 children. I must ask Uncle William for advice. 
 How violent he will be ! And what a shock 
 and disappointment to him ! But I must tell 
 him, whatever be the consequences."
 
 14 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 She got up and walked about the room, and 
 sat down again, and read the letter a third 
 time, and took up a paper-cutter and tapped 
 her fingers with it, and then, instinctively, 
 pushed by a force she could not resist, she 
 went up-stairs after the child, and helped to 
 undress it, and kissed it a good deal. 
 
 In taking off the child's clothes she saw 
 round its neck, on a thin chain, a little gold 
 medal, such as most Catholic children wear. 
 It bore on one side a figure of the Virgin, and 
 on the other the letters C. B. and the date 
 1st April 1860. 
 
 ^' Her initials, and the day of her birth," 
 said the nurse. ^' I believe her father put it 
 on her when she was born." 
 
 At six o'clock General Brandon drove up. 
 He was a very old man, with a hard but intel- 
 ligent face, expressive of much energy and 
 will ; he was straight and well preserved, and 
 looked, in spite of his years, as if he might last 
 a lono^ time. 
 
 " What is it, Harriet ? " he asked, testily. 
 *' Why do you send for me in this way ? And 
 with no explanations. You know I hate 
 coming out on winter evenings."
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 15 
 
 " My dear uncle, I sliould not have disturbed 
 you — you may be sure of that — if something 
 particular had not happened. I have received 
 bad news — very bad news — which will grieve 
 you as much as it does me. It is about 
 
 . . . Charlie " and then she broke down 
 
 and stopped to sob. 
 
 ^' What is the matter with Charlie ? " ex- 
 claimed the General ? But after a few seconds 
 he understood. " Charlie dead ! Good God ! 
 Where ? When 1 Was it that wound ? But 
 is that it ? Is he really dead ? Or is it some- 
 thing else ? And how do you know it 1 " 
 
 " Yes, that is it ; he is dead," moaned Miss 
 Brandon. " He has died at Lisbon. The wound 
 reopened. But he was ill before. And, my 
 dear uncle, that is not all. There is somethinof 
 else besides. It seems that without saying any- 
 thing to any of us . . . he had got married." 
 
 *' Got married ! " shouted the old General, 
 spriDging to his feet. " Got married ! And 
 without telling me f Got married without 
 telling me f Why, he was my heir. His 
 duty was to tell me, and everybody else too. 
 What does it mean, Harriet ? Why didn't he 
 tell me ? "
 
 16 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 " My dear uncle, there is a letter for you on 
 the road, telling you all about it. All the 
 details are in it, but it has not arrived yet. I 
 know it by another letter which poor Charlie 
 sent to me, and which got here this afternoon. 
 It came faster than yours. A person brought 
 it. And . . . and there is some more to tell 
 you, only don't be angry. Charlie, poor Charlie, 
 had a child, and he has sent the child to me, 
 and it is up-stairs." 
 
 '' Good God ! " groaned the General. " That 
 Charlie should have deceived me in this way ! 
 That he should have hidden all this from me, 
 knowing that he was my heir ! And he wrote 
 to me from time to time to say he was coming 
 home, for he knew I wanted him, and he told 
 me he had still some places to see before he 
 settled down at Hurley. That was his excuse. 
 T see it now. Very wrong ! very wrong I It 
 is horrible that Charlie should have told me 
 lies." 
 
 " But, my dear uncle, perhaps he did it all 
 for a good motive; perhaps he thought, it 
 might pain you." 
 
 " Pain me ? Why should it have pained me 
 if it was a proper marriage ? Naturally, he
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 17 
 
 ought to have married, and to have children ; 
 for he knew, as well as you do, that the pro- 
 perty was to go to him and his heirs, and not 
 to George, or to the other branch of the family. 
 But . . . Harriet ... I am afraid I am be- 
 ginning to understand. It was not a proper 
 marriage ! Is that the reason ? Tell me." 
 
 '' Oh yes, it was a proper marriage ; quite a 
 proper marriage ; at least ... I don't know . . . 
 but I think so. The person who has arrived 
 is ignorant of the details, but the letter I have 
 received says his wife was ... a French lady." 
 
 " French ? French ? " roared the General 
 *^ He married a Frenchwoman ? Harriet, I 
 understand now why he did not tell me." 
 
 "Well, it is not a crime to be French. 
 There must be French people, just as there are 
 other people. Only, as she was French, she 
 was ... a Eoman Catholic." 
 
 " She was a Papist too!" yelled the General, 
 his voice growing more violent at each ejacu- 
 lation. " Well, Harriet, if that was the case, 
 Charles was right not to tell me. I wouldn't 
 have received her, nor him either." 
 
 '' Oh, my dear uncle, don't say that ; pray 
 don't. Poor Charlie is dead." 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 '^ Dead ! — the best thing that could have 
 happened to him. Only, now the property 
 must go to George. And, pray, where is his 
 French wife ? " 
 
 " She is dead too." 
 
 "Oh, if she is dead, the matter is not so bad 
 after all," growled the General, still wild with 
 passion, but perceptibly relieved by the last 
 detail. 
 
 " But the child is here, Uncle William ; it 
 has just gone to sleep. It is a dear little child. 
 And she will love you, and you will love her, 
 instead of Charlie." 
 
 " Love a French Papist's child ! I ! Don't 
 talk nonsense, Harriet. I hate the French, 
 and I hate Papists. You know I do. And I 
 shall not change." 
 
 '^But do remember that it is Charlie's child. 
 Poor little thing ! Well, the other letter, the 
 one that Charlie has written to you, will be 
 here in a few days, and then we shall learn all 
 about it. Here is the letter Charlie wrote to 
 me when he was dying. It is about the child. 
 Won't you read it ? " 
 
 So the General read it, and muttered over 
 it. But he was quieter, and after a little
 
 CLAIRE BRAJs^DOX. 19 
 
 reflection, said — '' Great loss, Harriet ; great 
 loss. I don't at all like the property going to 
 George. You know I don't like George. I 
 never did. Nobody does. And this death of 
 Charlie makes me very sad. Of course he 
 ought to have outlived me, and to have in- 
 herited the estate. I vras very fond of Charlie. 
 And now he is dead. I suspect, too, that I 
 see his real motive for secrecy. He thought I 
 should die soon — I am eighty-one — and that, 
 when once I was out of the way, his marriage 
 would not matter." 
 
 As he spoke, the old man's lips trembled, a 
 sign of emotion he had perhaps never displayed 
 in his whole previous life. 
 
 Profiting by this symptom of feeling. Miss 
 Brandon put her arm on her uncle's shoulder 
 and asked, with as much softness as her 
 nature could assume, if he would go up and 
 see the child. He did not refuse. 
 
 They found the little thing asleep. They 
 looked at it in silence. ^Eiss Brandon's 
 eyes filled once more with tears ; she 
 longed to wake the child and cover it with 
 kisses. The General was very grave. But 
 when, on turning round to leave the room.
 
 20 CLATEE BKANDON. 
 
 he caught sight of the nurse dozing in a cor- 
 ner, he growled between his teeth — *' Horrid 
 Frenchwoman ! '' 
 
 They went down - stairs together. In the 
 hall the General said, with manifest sadness, 
 ^* I will come back in the morning. Poor 
 Charlie ! Good night, Harriet. "" 
 
 Miss Brandon went again to the side of the 
 child's bed, and sat there for two hours in a 
 half -dazed state, feeling vaguely that some- 
 thino; new had come into her life. 
 
 The next day the General walked down 
 early to the cottage. He looked very tired, 
 and his manner showed distress and anxiety. 
 His first words were — " I have been thinking 
 unceasiugly about all this, Harriet. I have 
 scarcely slept at all. I am very much 
 worried. All my plans are upset. You 
 know that when I made my will, I left 
 Hurley and everything else to Charles, or, 
 failing him, to his heir-at-law ; and, foolishly, 
 I did not specify a male heir, for I took it 
 for granted he would have a boy. I shall 
 have to make another will now, and to leave 
 Hurley to your brother George. He is now 
 the male heir. I don't like him, and I never
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 21 
 
 meant him to liave the estate, but really I 
 can't give it to this child, a girl, and to be 
 brought up a Papist too. No, Harriet, I can't 
 do that. I will make a good provision for the 
 child, to be added to what comes to her from 
 her father, but she cannot have Hurley. That 
 is impossible, and I must alter it. But it is most 
 disagreeable to me to have to leave the place 
 to Georore. I must go in to Lorston and talk 
 about it to Cumber, and give him instructions 
 to prepare another will for me to sign. I am 
 afraid I must do that, Harriet. Not that I 
 like it. Oh no ; quite the contrary. I don't 
 like it at all. And then I am so sorry about 
 Charles. I really am. But why did he keep 
 his marriao'e secret from me ? It was so 
 
 o 
 
 wrong of him ; and it looks so false. And a 
 Frenchwoman and a Papist too." 
 
 ^' My dear uncle, he kept it secret precisely 
 because she was French and a Catholic. He 
 did not dare to tell you. I see, with great 
 relief, that, because they are both dead, you 
 are disposed to forgive dear Charlie. But 
 suppose they were both alive, uncle ? What 
 then ? Would you have forgiven Charlie in 
 that case ? "
 
 22 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 ^* No, certainly not/' was the unhesitating 
 reply. 
 
 " Shall I bring Claire to yon ? " asked Miss 
 Brandon, thinking it wise to change the 
 subject. 
 
 *' Claire ? Who is Claire ? Oh, the child ! 
 You have got very quickly to calling it Claire. 
 A French name ! " 
 
 *' Yes, but it is her name ; and it is a short 
 and convenient name. And Clare, without 
 an i, is English too ; so, as the pronunciation 
 is the same, no one will know it is a French 
 name." 
 
 "Yes— I shall," said the General. "I 
 shall never forget it." 
 
 Miss Brandon fetched the child, who, though 
 not pretty, looked fresh and pleasant. She 
 was certainly a winning child, and had nice 
 ways. 
 
 The General looked keenly at her for some 
 moments, and murmured — '^And this is all 
 that is left of Charlie ! Of that brave boy 
 Charlie ! This poor little thing, that has 
 been sent from one country to another to 
 find a home, and from one woman to another 
 to find a mother ! "
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 23 
 
 " She shall find both here ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Brandon iropetuously, kissing the child with 
 such eagerness that she made it cry for the 
 first time. 
 
 The nurse had to be sent for to quiet her. 
 She looked all the better for a good sleep and 
 clean clothes, and her appearance, though 
 shockingly foreign in the General's eyes, was 
 so respectable that he was constrained to 
 observe — " Seems a decent woman, Harriet, 
 all the same. Better keep her till you get a 
 good English nurse. Now I'll go to Lorston 
 and see what is to be done. I'll come back 
 here to lunch and tell you what Cumber 
 says." 
 
 Mr Cumber was a solicitor of much ex- 
 perience, and as a result of that experience, 
 would never give advice to his clients, even 
 when it was asked for, as to what they should 
 do with their money. So when the General 
 consulted him about the change in his will, 
 the only answer he could get was — " Tell me 
 what you wish. General, and I will prepare a 
 draft for your approval. It is your business 
 to decide how your property is to be left ; it 
 is mine to put your intentions into form."
 
 24 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 This was not at all what the General 
 wanted, for at the bottom of his heart he 
 hoped Mr Cumber would make objections to 
 the plan of leaving the estate to his nephew 
 George Brandon. But he would not own to 
 Mr Cumber that he felt so ; and as no opening 
 offered itself for discussing any other arrange- 
 ment, he tried to persuade himself that he 
 was satisfied, talked about the necessity of a 
 male heir for an estate that had been five 
 hundred years in the family, though it had 
 never been entailed, and finally gave verbal 
 instructions to Mr Cumber to draw up a new 
 will, leaving Hurley Park, with the woods 
 and farms, to George Brandon, £40,000 in 
 consols and railway debentures to the child 
 Claire as daughter and heir of Charles Brandon, 
 confirming a legacy of £20,000, mentioned in 
 the first will, in favour of Harriet Brandon, 
 and leaving the rest of the personalty for 
 equal division between George and Harriet 
 Brandon. 
 
 Then the General drove back to his niece, 
 feeling extremely discontented, and in that 
 state of peevishness into which so many old 
 people fair if their arrangements are disturbed,
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 25 
 
 and if they are obliged by circumstances to do 
 what is disao^reeable to them. 
 
 He stated what he had done, grumbled that 
 he had had to do it, and said he was utterly 
 disgusted to be obliged to leave the estate to 
 George. And then he went into a rambling 
 complaint against Charles Brandon, as the 
 cause of all these worries ; said he had been 
 deceived by him, and worked himself by 
 degrees into a passion, in which he used a 
 good deal of strong language. 
 
 Harriet Brandon took all this with unusual 
 calmness, defended her brother in moderate 
 words, and tried to quiet the General by once 
 more proposing that he should go with her to 
 the child. This time, however, the stratagem 
 did not succeed. The old gentleman not only 
 refused to see the baby then, but declared, with 
 a good deal of ferocity, that he would never 
 see it any more, that the sight of it was odious 
 to him, and that the sooner it was sent away 
 the better he would be pleased. 
 
 Instead of meeting this ill-temper by similar 
 violence of her own, as she would have done 
 twenty -four hours before. Miss Brandon at- 
 tempted very earnestly to soothe her uncle,
 
 26 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 answered Ms outbursts with gentleness, and 
 succeeded at last in getting him in to luncheon 
 in a comparatively appeased state. But the 
 pacification was only superficial ; the General 
 was altogether upset, ate very little, com- 
 plained of headache, said he wanted to be 
 alone, and went away in recommencing ex- 
 citement. 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Miss Brandon re- 
 turned to the child, took it on her knee, and 
 beofan to talk to it. For the first time she 
 felt tenderness growing up within her. 
 
 She had been left an orphan when she was 
 very young, and had been brought up by a 
 distant relative of disagreeable character; at 
 twenty-one she had come into the possession 
 of £1200 a-year, had settled with a companion 
 in the cottage at Hurley, had not found a 
 husband, and, as the years passed on, had 
 grown irritable, and even harsh in manner. 
 And yet at the bottom of her heart there was 
 infinite goodness hidden away, awaiting sat- 
 isfying employment, and flinging itself out 
 meanwhile in capricious kindness to the poor 
 people round. There was more than goodness 
 in her ; there was a need of love which would
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 27 
 
 have frightened her if she had been able to 
 analyse her feelings, and to measure and un- 
 derstand the true extent of her OTvn capacity 
 for affection. She had been led by destiny to 
 imagine that she was cold ; no circumstance 
 in her dry, solitary life had ever struck her 
 heart-strings, had ever made her vibrate, had 
 ever proved to her that, like many other un- 
 tried women, she possessed a temperament 
 that on occasion could brins; forth oreat fruit, 
 a power of sympathy and devotion, and even 
 of enthusiasm and passion, as real and as 
 potential, in theii' dormant unconsciousness, 
 as if fate had called upon them, through long 
 years, to prove in action their efficacy and 
 their force. The world of lonely women is 
 full to overflowing of latent unsuspected capa- 
 bilities of love. More fortimate than many 
 others, Harriet Brandon had found her oppor- 
 tunity at last. But she did not know it yet. 
 
 In ignorance of her own ability of attach- 
 ment, believing from pure inexperience that 
 she had no soul to pour out in fondness, she 
 took the baby and whispered nonsense to it, 
 thinking that was the right way to behave to 
 it. And even her nonsense confirmed her, at
 
 28 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 first, ill the conviction that she had no tender- 
 ness to offer, for it seemed to her most awk- 
 ward, chilly nonsense, quite unworthy to be 
 used to such a fresh, bright baby. She fancied, 
 in her utter unskilfulness, that the child would 
 perceive how incapable she was, which, con- 
 sidering that it was twenty-two months old, 
 was scarcely a reasonable supposition. In- 
 stead, however, of seeming discontented, it 
 stared at her, and laughed, as if it compre- 
 hended and approved ; it threw its arms into 
 the air with evident joyousness, and Miss 
 Brandon began to feel less humiliated, and 
 even somewhat encouraged, and kissed and 
 talked and endeavoured to tell stories, and 
 found that the occupation, though quite new 
 to her, was singularly pleasant. 
 
 And as she kissed and babbled, the thought 
 came suddenly before her that this baby, which 
 had fallen to her from the skies the day before, 
 was absolutely her own; that she had got it 
 all to herself, that she could do what she liked 
 with it, that its destiny depended in great 
 part upon her will. This abrupt perception 
 of the nature and the responsibilities of mater- 
 nity gave at first a shock of fear to Miss Bran-
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 29 
 
 don, who conscientiously believed herself to be 
 totally unfit for the duties thrust upon her, 
 and who had not yet discovered that a duty 
 which is based on love can never frighten. 
 The duty was there before her, in all its 
 suddenly alarming vastness ; the love that 
 was to lio'hten and to briohten it, and to 
 make of it a joy of the intensest reality and 
 purity, had not yet formed in her sufiiciently 
 to cheer her. She saw the duty by itself, 
 and for an instant shrank from it in awe. 
 But yearning was already arising within her, 
 insensibly though rapidly, and she found to 
 her astonishment, as the moments passed, that 
 she fondled more and feared less, and, soon, 
 that all fear had disappeared. She told her- 
 self that she had a charge. The notion came 
 to her tumultuously, and was seized by her 
 with her usual impetuosity. Thoughts dashed 
 about in her, and shook her, and made her 
 tremble, but yet, notwithstanding their effer- 
 vescence, they were altogether clear ; there 
 was no mist about them ; they stood out 
 sharply before her, and she found delight in 
 them. She did not realise, for the moment, 
 the immensity of the change that had been
 
 30 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 wrought in her, but slie knew that she had 
 suddenly a mission, and she rejoiced. An 
 unaccustomed sentiment of peace began to 
 pervade her heart; a consciousness that she 
 was no longer alone in life developed itself in 
 the air around her ; she seemed to breathe it, 
 and infinitely sweet it was to her. Love had 
 not come into her in an instantaneous bursting 
 flood, as it rushes into the mother when she 
 hears the first feeble cry of her new-born 
 child ; in her case it had needed a few hours 
 for its formation. The hours had passed, and 
 the love had come, and Harriet Brandon held 
 out the child at arm's length, and gazed at it 
 with a swelling in her heart; and suddenly 
 a great resistless wave of tenderness passed 
 over her — she ceased to chatter nonsense, and 
 gravely said, " Claire, I love you." 
 
 Claire laughed, but did not understand. 
 
 And then Miss Brandon, more gravely still, 
 with tears rolling unnoticed down her cheeks, 
 said once more, in the child's mother's tongue, 
 as if she were a priestess performing a religious 
 rite, and were solemnly taking possession of the 
 child in its mother's place, '' Claire, je t'aime." 
 
 But Claire went on laughing, and did not
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 31 
 
 understand that either. She only stretched 
 out her little hands and waved them about. 
 
 Miss Brandon murmured to herself, *'She 
 can never call me mother. That would be 
 too great a joy ; a greater joy than I deserve. 
 But, Charlie, you have left her to my care, 
 and I will do my duty to her — as if I were 
 her mother." 
 
 And, sobbing, she carried the baby to its 
 bed, and laid it down, and knelt beside it, 
 and prayed with all her might. 
 
 She rose up strangely comforted, feeling, 
 confusedly, for the first time in her existence, 
 that gentleness was now a need of her career, 
 and was on the point of taking the baby into 
 her arms once more, and of going on whisper- 
 ing to it of the new love that possessed her, 
 when rapid steps came up the staircase, the 
 door was opened hastily, and the maid sprang 
 in, exclaiming, '' Oh, ma'am, such bad news ! 
 The General has been taken in a fit, and they 
 think he is dying. A man has run down from 
 the House to tell you."
 
 32 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 Befoee Miss Brandon could reach the House, 
 the General was dead. The violent emotions 
 he had gone through had been too much for 
 him, and had brought on apoplexy. 
 
 The shock to Miss Brandon was very severe. 
 She was warmly attached to her uncle, with 
 whom she had lived, for many years, in almost 
 daily contact ; and, naturally, the effect which 
 had been produced on her excitable tempera- 
 ment by the news of her brother's death and 
 by the arrival of the child, had rendered her 
 more than ordinarily nervous, and quite unfit 
 to bear a new blow. She sobbed most violently, 
 and was utterly upset. But yet her will was 
 strong enough to make her perceive that, she 
 ought to telegraph to her brother George, 
 announcing the double loss of his uncle and 
 his brother, and asking him to come at once to
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 33 
 
 Hurley. And then site went back home, and 
 sat at the child's side, and cried. 
 
 The next afternoon Mr George Brandon 
 appeared. He was ten years younger than 
 his sister. He was a barrister, and lived in 
 London. He was intelligent, well-mannered, 
 and good-looking, and yet he was generally 
 disliked. No one, however, could have ex- 
 plained why. There was no apparent reason 
 for the antipathy he provoked. He had never 
 done anything wrong to anybody. It was 
 true that there were lurking sis^ns of sourness 
 and falseness about his mouth ; that his chin 
 had a distinctly aggressive expression, resulting 
 from the hardness and the sharpness of its 
 lines ; and that his eyes had often an unquiet 
 look, as if he were conscious of a crime and 
 expected to be suddenly arrested : but these 
 indications were not marked enough or evident 
 enough to attract attention, or to show that 
 he had a character which justified people in 
 shrinkino' from him. As he souojht no inti- 
 macies and possessed no friends, nobody was 
 sufficiently interested in him to ask the motive 
 of the instinctive dislike that was felt towards 
 him. His sister, who mistrusted him pro- 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 34 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 foundly, was probably the only person who 
 could give an explanation of her aversion. 
 She was perfectly clear and very outspoken on 
 the subject ; she concealed from no one that, 
 in her opinion, her brother George had no 
 heart at all, that he thought of nothing but 
 himself, and that he passed his time in unceas- 
 ing preoccupation as to the means he could 
 employ to turn things to his own advantage. 
 Her own nature was so open, so generous, 
 so impulsive, that the calculating coldness of 
 her brother disgusted her, and made her feel 
 ashamed that any one of the name of Brandon 
 should be constituted in such a fashion. His 
 presence irritated her and always stimulated 
 her quarrelsomeness. The result was that his 
 visits to her had been rare. 
 
 When he came in they kissed each other 
 coldly. 
 
 Mr George Brandon observed, " AH this is 
 very sad, Harriet ; very sad." 
 
 And Miss Brandon replied, " Yes, George, 
 very sad ; extremely sad." 
 
 And then they seemed to have no more to 
 say. 
 
 After a while it occurred to Miss Brandon
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 35 
 
 that it would be right to communicate to her 
 brother the details of the events which had 
 just happened. So she told him the whole 
 story. He listened with close attention, and, 
 when she had finished, remained silent for a 
 time. 
 
 At last he remarked, in a tone of voice 
 which seemed to her peculiarly acrimonious, 
 "Then, as my uncle did not live to execute 
 the new will, I am excluded from the property 
 he meant me to have, and this child, as 
 Charles's heir-at-law, comes into Hurley under 
 the provisions of the old will." 
 
 " Of course," replied Miss Brandon, who, 
 until that moment, had not o^iven a thouo-ht 
 to this aspect of the situation, but who felt 
 suddenly quite comforted by the notion that 
 George was bitterly disappointed. 
 
 And then there was another silence, during 
 which Miss Brandon hesitated whether she 
 should ask him to see the child. It seemed 
 to her that, on the whole, it was .right to do 
 so, and therefore she proposed to him to go 
 up-stairs with her. 
 
 He, however, declined the ofier, saying, 
 ** Thank you, Harriet ; I think not. You
 
 3 b CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 really can scarcely expect me to have much 
 liking for a child who has dropped from God 
 knows where between me and seven thousand 
 a-year." 
 
 This answer, which was perhaps not alto- 
 gether inexcusable under the circumstances, 
 appeared to Miss Brandon to be so abominably 
 and so unpardonably wicked, that a furious 
 answer rushed instantly to her lips. But 
 something checked her, something new within 
 her — she did not know what. She made, 
 instinctively, an effort to control herself, swal- 
 lowed twice convulsively, and said nothing. 
 
 As soon as the funeral was over, Mr George 
 Brandon returned to London, after an icy 
 parting with his sister. 
 
 Mr Cumber had been appointed by the will 
 executor and trustee, and, in those qualities, 
 proceeded to enter into possession of the estate 
 for the child. 
 
 And then, when the business was done, 
 Miss Brandon threw her whole self into the 
 child. She forgot the sadness of the t_wo 
 recent deaths, she forgot her duties in the 
 village, she forgot entirely to get angry several 
 times a-day. She lived for nothing else than
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 37 
 
 to look at Claire, and play with her, and 
 chatter to her. But, as the nurse was a neces- 
 sary part of Claire, she talked to her as well, 
 and got technical instruction from her about 
 the handling of a baby, and listened to her 
 stories about the Colonel, and began to like her. 
 
 In one of their conversations the nurse ob- 
 served, " Don t you think, mademoiselle, it is 
 time that Henry arrived ? It seems to me he 
 ought to be here now." 
 
 " Of course he ought," replied Miss Brandon. 
 "You came nearlv a fortnioht ao-o. Of course 
 he ought to be here. I will ask Mr Cumber 
 when the boat is due." 
 
 She went that afternoon to Lorston for the 
 purpose, and was told by Mr Cumber that he 
 too was rather surprised at the delay, and that 
 he thought it would be as well to communicate 
 with the agents at Southampton in order to 
 ascertain the day on which the steamer was 
 expected. A letter was sent by him at once. 
 
 The answer came by return of post, stating 
 that not only the vessel following the Britannia 
 (which had brought the nurse and child), but 
 another also had come in, and that Henry 
 Blaine was not on board either of them. The
 
 38 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 letter added that Blaine's luggage liad remained 
 unclaimed since it had been landed from the 
 Britannia, and that Mr Cumber (who was 
 known to the agents) had better have it taken 
 away to avoid warehouse expenses. 
 
 This news perplexed Mr Cumber. He felt 
 instinctively, as a lawyer, that it would be 
 just as well — if only as a matter of form — to 
 have the papers Blaine was bringing, and 
 though delay was of no real importance, still 
 it was useless and vexing. And Blaine, too, 
 was to tell the whole story of the marriage, 
 and to give Miss Brandon the details she was 
 waitinof for with such eao^erness. Until he 
 came she would have to remain in ignorance. 
 His non - arrival seemed inexplicable, and, 
 whatever was the cause of it, was certainly 
 particularly annoying. 
 
 There was, at that time, no cable to Lisbon, 
 otherwise Mr Cumber would have asked the 
 people at Southampton to inquire by it what 
 had become of Henry Blaine. The mails went 
 by sea, and as the boats were only weekly and 
 took five days for the passage, two or three 
 weeks might elapse before an answer could be 
 got by post. Still, though it seemed unneces-
 
 CLAIEE BRANDON. 39 
 
 sary to write — because it was taken for granted 
 that Blaine was on the way somewhere — the 
 agents were requested to obtain news from 
 Lisbon. 
 
 Meanwhile the luggage was sent for. There 
 were several packages : two of them bore the 
 name of Henry Blaine ; the rest had belonged 
 to Colonel Brandon. 
 
 In the presence of Miss Harriet Brandon, at 
 Mr Cumber's office, all the trunks were broken 
 opcD. It was a painful proceeding, and Miss 
 Brandon suffered keenly from it ; but her sur- 
 mise that her brother's letter to the General 
 might be in Blaine's boxes, and her confi- 
 dent expectation that, in any event, she would 
 find information about the marriao^e amonorst 
 her brother's papers, gave her courage to go 
 through with the task. The red despatch-box 
 of which the nurse had spoken was soon found, 
 but, to the vexation of Miss Brandon, it con- 
 tained nothing of the faintest interest. There 
 were no letters, no documents, no indications 
 of any kind. The few^ memoranda that were 
 in it were notes about Portugal in the Colonel's 
 WTiting, and some calculations of the time and 
 expense necessary for a journey to Oporto and
 
 40 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 the Minho. In the portmanteaus there were 
 clothes and personal objects and a few books, 
 but nothing that had the slightest relation to 
 family affairs. It was therefore with much 
 increased interest, and even agitation, that 
 Miss Brandon turned to the two boxes belong- 
 ing to the servant, in the eager hope that the 
 letter would be there. But again she was 
 disappointed; there was nothing in Blaine's 
 luggage that could throw the slightest light 
 upon the situation. There was a letter from 
 his mother, with news of the coming marriage 
 of his sister, and that was all. 
 
 Miss Brandon went back to Hurley ex- 
 tremely mortified and saddened, and with a 
 strong disposition to lose her temper on the 
 first opportunity that might ofier. Mr Cumber 
 had not attempted to console her ; he had 
 simply observed, " Well, now, we must wait 
 till Blaine arrives." 
 
 But, as waiting is generally an irritating 
 process, as it had always been particularly so 
 to Miss Brandon, and as the circumstances 
 were of a nature to intensify its efiects, it 
 put her into such a state of nervousness and 
 impatience that even the child ceased to ex-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 41 
 
 ercise a quieting influence over her. She 
 went in almost every day to Lorston, to see 
 Mr Cumber, and persecuted him ^ith ques- 
 tions. She exaofo^erated or mistook the mean- 
 ings of the prudent, guarded answers he made 
 to her, and worked herself into a state of ir- 
 repressible agitation. She began to suspect 
 there was some deceit about the whole story 
 from Lisbon. She attacked the nurse and 
 told her she was an impostor and a liar ; and 
 then she grew suddenly ashamed and sorry, 
 and beo^o-ed the woman to take no notice of 
 her words, because she did not mean what 
 she said. Sometimes she doubted whether 
 her brother was dead, whether the letter she 
 had received was really from him, whether 
 he had ever been married, and whether the 
 child was his at all. At other moments she 
 became passionately loving with Claire, called 
 her by all the names that tenderness could 
 invent, and cried for hours over her. Then 
 she addressed a hundred questions to the nurse, 
 and obtained no reply. This state of things 
 went on until more than a month had passed 
 since the arrival of the child ; but still there 
 was no sign of Henry Blaine.
 
 42 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 At last, one afternoon, Mr Cumber appeared 
 at the cottage. He looked serious, and Miss 
 Brandon felt instinctively that something had 
 happened. 
 
 He brought her two letters he had received 
 that day. One was from the steamboat agents 
 at Southampton, enclosing a copy of the 
 answer from their house at Lisbon. It stated 
 simply that nothing had been heard of Blaine 
 since the departure of the Britannia. The 
 other, from Mr George Brandon, was as 
 follows : — 
 
 '• London, 6th March 1862. 
 
 "My dear Cumber, — I suppose my brother's 
 servant has arrived with the papers concerning 
 his marriage. 
 
 " As I have received no communication from 
 you on the subject, I shall be much obliged 
 if you will have the kindness to inform me 
 about it. — Sincerely yours, 
 
 " George Brandon." 
 
 After reading the two letters, Miss Brandon 
 exclaimed, with an emotion which grew more 
 and more violent as she went on speaking, 
 and reached at last a paroxysm of excitement :
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 43 
 
 '^ What can it all mean ? What can have 
 become of Blaine ? Certainly there must be 
 something wrong. Can Blaine have got up 
 the whole story for some purpose of his own ? 
 How do we know that Charles reallv sis^ned 
 that letter to me ? Oh, pray advise me ! 
 What shall I do ? Of course I shall keep the 
 dear little child ; but is it Charlie's child at 
 all 1 Oh, do tell me what to do ! And 
 George ? It is manifest that he will make 
 difiSculties if he can. I felt that the first time 
 I saw him after my uncle's death. But — Mr 
 Cumber — if George makes difficulties, that will 
 change everything ? In that case, I will de- 
 fend the child, no matter what happens. I 
 cannot bear George, and if he turns against 
 the little darlino^, I will fio-ht him, althouo-h he 
 is my brother. Besides, I have no doubts at 
 all. I did not mean it when I said I had. 
 I know it is Charlie's child, and I know he 
 was married, and feel it is all true, as if I had 
 been a witness. Who can dispute it ? Xobody 
 would, except George. He is so odiously 
 selfish, Georo'e. If he means to be hostile to 
 the baby, he will provoke me to the bitterest 
 resistance. I will stand before her as if she
 
 44 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 were my own — and she is my own. I have 
 sworn that to poor Charlie. Now tell me, Mr 
 Cumber, what shall we do ? " 
 
 " Well, my dear lady, I have of course given 
 a good deal of thought to the matter. It is, 
 as you say, very strange, and I do not pretend 
 to understand it. All that we can do for the 
 moment is to try to discover, if possible, what 
 has become of Blaine. For that purpose, I 
 propose to you to send out a person to Lisbon. 
 If that is not done, and if Blaine's arrival 
 continues to be delayed, we may remain 
 indefinitely in our present condition of un- 
 certainty. I have a very intelligent clerk, 
 who can speak a little French, and if you 
 authorise the expense, I think he had better 
 go by the next boat, and try to get to the 
 bottom of the matter. His name is Gray. I 
 know no one else so fit to be intrusted with 
 such a mission." 
 
 The proposal calmed Miss Brandon a little, 
 for it opened the door to action, and in that 
 way gave a sort of satisfaction to the energy 
 of her character. She answered, '* Certainly ; 
 I quite agree with you. Of course we cannot 
 go on in this way ; it is altogether intolerable.
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 45 
 
 Pray send Mr Gray at once. I shall be so 
 much obliged to you. And tell him, above 
 all, not to lose an instant in letting us know. 
 My anxiety is becoming so intense, that at 
 moments I can scarcely bear it. And what 
 answer will you send to George ? Oh, how 
 wdcked he is ! " 
 
 " I can only say the truth — that Blaine 
 has not arrived, that we are expecting him 
 every day, and that I will let Mr George 
 know as soon as he is here." 
 
 Then Mr Cumber went away, and Miss 
 Brandon walked up and down the room, and 
 thought. " I know what George is about," 
 she said to herself. " He is seeking for means 
 to attack Charlie's child — my child. To attack 
 my child ! And he calls himself my brother ! 
 And all for money. How hideous ! Well, 
 poor Charlie ! you would not have expected 
 that. Of course it is impossible to understand 
 the absence of the servant : and if Georo-e 
 had behaved properly, I might have had doubts 
 myself. But his letter to Cumber has made 
 all my doubts disappear. If he had any heart 
 he would have no suspicions, but would join 
 with me in protecting the child, instead of
 
 46 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 working against tlie little darling for his 
 own odious purposes. Little darling ! I will 
 take care of you. It steadies me and quiets 
 me to think that the duty of defending you 
 has fallen to me. And defend you I will, to 
 the utmost limit of energy and effort. It is 
 my duty. Sweet little innocent ! How cruel 
 that you should be treated in this way by my 
 own brother ! " 
 
 Miss Brandon forgot, in her indignation, 
 that, so far, her brother George had simply 
 asked Mr Cumber, in the most natural manner, 
 for information, and had manifested no inten- 
 tions whatever. But her way of reasoning 
 did not always take facts for a basis ; it 
 was her habit to be illogical and to jump to 
 extremes, and in this case her pre-existing 
 dislike of her brother disposed her to view 
 his proceedings in the worst light. She sus- 
 pected that, if he could, he would dispute 
 the rights of the child, and the suspicion 
 rendered her wild. It had appeared to her 
 quite natural to feel, at certain moments, mis- 
 givings and hesitations herself ; but the instant 
 she fancied that any one else shared them, 
 she got into a rage, and declared it was dis-
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 47 
 
 graceful to have any doubts at all. And it 
 was especially disgraceful in her eyes that her 
 own brother — who certainly had the strongest 
 possible motives for desiring to be able to doubt 
 — should permit himself to ask for news. 
 
 In feverish agitation she had to wait for 
 intelligence from Lisbon. She scarcely ever 
 left the child. Her love for it became almost 
 a frenzy. She grew frightened if it was out 
 of her sight for a few minutes, and imagined 
 sometimes that attempts would be made to 
 steal it. She had it in her room at nio^ht, 
 and was perpetually starting in her sleep, and 
 getting out of bed to put her arms round it, in 
 order to protect it. The nurse complained, 
 and said this woke the child ; but she had 
 found already that it was useless to resist 
 Miss Brandon, and recognised that she must 
 either bear it all, or go. So, not wishing to 
 go, she bore it. Besides, Miss Brandon treated 
 her, as a rule, most kindly, and talked to her 
 continually ; they wondered together where 
 Blaine could be, and what had become of the 
 letter, and, in a sort of way, they became 
 friends under the pressure of their common 
 anxiety.
 
 48 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 At last, after wearying suspense, a letter 
 came from Mr Gray. It was as follows : — 
 
 " Lisbon, 24th March 1862. 
 
 *^ Sir, — I arrived here on the IStli instant, 
 and, according to your instructions, went at 
 once to the Braganza Hotel, and to the British 
 Legation and Consulate. 
 
 " As soon as I had stated the object of my 
 journey, I received offers of assistance from 
 every one. The Consul was kind enough to 
 place a clerk at my disposal, to go about with 
 me, and interpret for me. 
 
 " At the hotel I learnt that Colonel Brandon 
 died there on 18th January, and that he was 
 buried on the 20th. I have seen the two 
 doctors who attended him, and was told by 
 them that the immediate cause of death was 
 pneumonia, brought on by the reopening of 
 the wound in the side, following on a previous 
 condition of disease of the lungs. I have 
 obtained a duly authenticated certificate of 
 the death. 
 
 *' The Colonel appears to have shown very 
 remarkable afii'ection to the child during the 
 time he was in Lisbon. His tenderness was
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDON. 49 
 
 SO unceasing, that it was noticed by all the 
 people in the hotel. Before he died he asked 
 the master of the house to do all he could to 
 facilitate the journey of the child to England, 
 and, if necessary, to apply for the aid of the 
 British Minister. He spoke also warmly of the 
 two servants, saying he had given them full 
 instructions and letters to his family, and that 
 they were to take the child to England, and 
 also his money and his luggage. 
 
 *' At the steamboat office I was told that 
 they knew nothing of Blaine. He had, as 
 stated by the nurse, taken passages to South- 
 ampton for himself, the nurse, and the child, 
 by the Britannia, which sailed from Lisbon on 
 27th January; and they heard afterwards, at 
 the office, that he had missed the ship. Since 
 that time they have not seen him. 
 
 *' Then I addressed myself to the police, 
 and obtained, through the kind intervention 
 of the Consul, permission to examine the daily 
 reports from and after the 27th January, the 
 day on which Blaine returned ashore from the 
 steamer. No one in any way like him had 
 come to any inn or lodging-house in Lisbon, or 
 had been received into the hospitals. Nor 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 could I discover any trace of him at any of 
 the shipping or diligence offices. 
 
 " Finally, I asked for the list of accidents 
 and suicides, and I regret to say it seems not 
 impossible that this may have led me to a clue. 
 
 " On the 2d of February, the body of a man 
 was found floating in the Tagus, with two 
 stabs in the chest. The man had been dead 
 apparently four or ^ve days. He had no 
 clothes on but his trousers. As his skin was 
 white and his hair fair, it was supposed he 
 was a foreigner. There was an old scar, as if 
 from a sword-cut, on his left shoulder. The 
 body, which was much decomposed, was buried 
 immediately by the police, who seem to have 
 made no inquiries about the man, being accus- 
 tomed, apparently, to find bodies in the Tagus. 
 
 " The idea that the body might perhaps be 
 that of Blaine, induced me to inquire of the 
 porter and the waiters at the hotel, whether 
 they knew anything of his habits during the 
 time he passed in Lisbon, or of the persons, 
 if any, whom he frequented. I was informed 
 that he often went out alone in the evenino;, 
 after his master had gone to bed, and returned 
 usually rather late. No one knew, however.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 51 
 
 where he went, excepting that it was down the 
 hill towards the river. It occurred to me that- 
 as Blaine could not speak Portuguese, it waa 
 improbable he would have made acquaintances, 
 unless it were amongst the few seafaring Eng- 
 lish who are to be found in small boarding- 
 houses or drinking - places along the Tagus. 
 So I visited all the houses of that description 
 which are known to the Consul or the police ; 
 but I could learn nothing. It may be pre- 
 sumed that the motive which brought Blaine 
 ashore again from the Britannia had, in all 
 probability, some connection with the visits he 
 was in the habit of making at nights ; but, on 
 all that part of the case, I have failed thus far 
 to discover anything. I can only suppose that 
 he did not mean to remain on shore, and that 
 on the contrary it was his intention to return 
 to the steamer, for he had taken his own lug- 
 gage on board with the nurse, and had left 
 it there. 
 
 " A detail of considerable interest, which 
 was mentioned to me by one of the waiters, 
 is that Blaine stated to him, after the Colonel's 
 death, in the presence of other persons, that 
 he had the Colonel's money upon him to con-
 
 52 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 vey to England, and that lie did not like the 
 responsibility of carrying it about. Such a 
 fact, if known, would be of a nature to induce 
 robbers to lay a trap for him. 
 
 '' It would be premature to say that the 
 body found in the Tagus on the 2d February 
 was that of Henry Blaine. To assist in de- 
 ciding that question, we have at our disposal 
 two possibilities of identification. The first 
 is the scar on the left shoulder. Had he such 
 a scar ? His family (if you could find them) 
 could probably inform you upon that. The 
 trousers ofier the second chance. I have suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining them from the police, 
 and have shown them to the people of the 
 hotel, but no one there could recognise them. 
 I shall bring them with me to England, 
 in the hope that the nurse may be able 
 to say whether she has seen them worn by 
 Blaine. They are discoloured, stained, and 
 torn. 
 
 " I shall remain here a few days longer to 
 continue my inquiries, and expect to be -able 
 to return by the next steamer. 
 
 " In conclusion, I ought to observe that the 
 nurse's story, so far as you have related it
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDON. 58 
 
 to me, seems to be fully corroborated by all 
 I have learnt here. — I am, Sir, your faithful 
 servant, C. Gray." 
 
 When Miss Brandon had finished reading 
 this letter (which Mr Cumber brought to her 
 directly it arrived), she sat back in her chair, 
 closed her eyes, and remained silent. Even 
 her nature, with all its sturdiness, was crushed 
 for a moment by the news. After a time, 
 she said, with a broken voice, '' But if Blaine 
 is murdered and robbed, the letter must be 
 lost." 
 
 Mr Cumber replied, " It would be going too 
 far to admit at once that the body found 
 in the Tagus was that of Blaine. But the 
 delay in his arrival here, combined with the 
 impossibility of tracing him at Lisbon, does 
 certainly point to the hypothesis that he may 
 have been murdered. In that case there can 
 be little doubt that whatever he had upon 
 him, money or papers, would be taken ; and 
 if the letter from Colonel Brandon to the 
 General were in his pocket, it would, in all 
 probability, be stolen with the rest." 
 
 " If it were in his pocket ? " interrupted Miss
 
 54 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Brandon, waking up again. "Where could 
 it be, excepting in his pocket 'i It was not 
 in his luggage ; we know that. Therefore it 
 was in his pocket. That is certain." 
 
 ''Not certain; only very likely," answered 
 Mr Cumber, gently. " I fear, however, that, 
 wherever it was, it has disappeared, and I 
 do not yet see any plan by which we could 
 hope to get it back again. If Blaine was 
 drawn into some low hole in Lisbon, and 
 killed there for the money he was known to 
 have upon him, we must suppose that the 
 murderers would destroy everything that could 
 compromise them, and a letter would certainly 
 be burnt. It cannot therefore be reasonably 
 expected that we should gain anything by 
 offering a reward for the recovery of the 
 letter. Still, we could make the attempt, 
 provided we could obtain immunity from the 
 Portuguese authorities for the person who 
 restored it. But we need not think of that 
 for the moment. We must, first of all, try to 
 discover whether the body was really that of 
 Blaine. His mother ought to know about the 
 scar. Most luckily I have her address in that 
 letter from her which we found in Blaine's
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 55 
 
 boxes. It is somewhere in Somersetshire. I 
 will write to her at once. And I should like 
 to ask a question of the nurse ; would you be 
 so kind as to have her called, and to interpret 
 for me "? " 
 
 When Bert he came in, Mr Cumber said to 
 her, " Have you any recollection of the clothes 
 that Henry Blaine used to wear ? " 
 
 " Oh yes. He had very few clothes. So 
 far as I know, he had only two suits besides 
 his black clothes ; one was all grey, and the 
 other was a black jacket and waistcoat and 
 brown trousers." 
 
 " Can you remember which of the two suits 
 he wore on the day you embarked on board 
 the Britannia at Lisbon ? " 
 
 '' He wore the grey suit. He told me he 
 had packed up the other, which was the better 
 one of the two, and that the grey was all 
 he wanted for the voyage. And I know it, 
 too, for another reason. After the luo-o-aore had 
 gone away from the hotel to the steamer, 
 Henry stooped to pick up something, and 
 the button that held his brace came oK He 
 asked me to sew it on again for him, and 
 I did. I laid the baby on the bed, and I sat
 
 56 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 upon a chair, and he stood before me. And 
 as my sewing things were in my box, I had 
 no black thread — I remember that because 
 we talked about it ; and I sewed the button 
 with white thread I had in my pocket in 
 this," — and she took out of her pocket a 
 little wooden cotton and needle case such 
 as many French servants have. 
 
 " On which side of his trousers did you sew 
 the button ? " 
 
 '' On the left side." 
 
 " Well," said Mr Cumber, as soon as Berthe 
 had quitted the room, '' this curious detail may 
 clear up the question. How very singular the 
 composition of evidence often is ! In this case 
 we have the scar as well ; but if there had 
 been no scar, the proof might have depended 
 on the colour of the thread that sewed that 
 button. We shall see when Mr Gray brings 
 the trousers. But we can get quicker infor- 
 mation from Blaine's mother. If she says 
 her son really had the scar, and if the trou- 
 sers are grey, with a button on the left srde 
 sewn with white thread, there will, I fear, be 
 no room for doubt." 
 
 And then Miss Brandon broke in with a
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 67 
 
 trembling voice, — " But, Mr Cumber, what are 
 we to say — what can we say — to my brother 
 George 1 " 
 
 " The truth, my dear Miss Brandon — the 
 truth, as I have ah'eady answered you on a 
 previous occasion. There is nothing to be 
 hidden, and your brother has a right to know 
 alL You expected Blaine to arrive, and to 
 bring the legal evidence of the Colonel's mar- 
 riage. It appears probable, unhappily, that 
 Blaine has disappeared, and that the evidence 
 sent has disappeared with him. We must say 
 so to Mr Georoe Brandon." 
 
 o 
 
 " If so, Mr Cumber," went on Harriet Bran- 
 don, with more energy, " surely you can add 
 that we shall take immediate steps to obtain 
 the evidence from other sources. The marriao;e 
 must have taken place in France. I cannot 
 doubt that we shall find the proofs of it." 
 
 " Well, it may have been j)erformed in 
 France," replied Mr Cumber, with his usual 
 prudence ; " we do not know with any cer- 
 tainty. As the lady was French, and as the 
 nurse heard that she died in France, there 
 is some justification for supposing that she 
 was married there. But remember, that is
 
 58 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 only a presumption. Still, if we could get 
 hold of any facts to work upon, we might 
 employ detectives. I suppose we shall be 
 able to find out where the Colonel stayed 
 in France, and in that way we shall obtain 
 the first clues to follow. It is late, and I 
 must leave you now ; I do not want to lose 
 a post in writing to Blaine's mother. To- 
 morrow I will send a copy of Gray's report 
 to Mr George Brandon." 
 
 When Mr Cumber had gone, Miss Brandon 
 went up-stairs to the child and sat down by 
 its side. It was asleep. She watched it with 
 an agitation which nothing in her experi- 
 ence of excitability, large as it was, had at all 
 prepared her for. In her previous vehemen- 
 cies she had always recognised that, what- 
 ever were their causes, they were merely 
 temporary, and would expire of themselves. 
 She had even told herself sometimes that 
 it was very unsatisfactory, and even rather 
 ridiculous, to indulge so often in emotions 
 which by their nature were destined to wear 
 out so fast. Yet she had gone on with them 
 — in part by habit, in part because she had 
 nothing else to put in their place, and because
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 59 
 
 losing her temper was a convenient and easily 
 attainable form of ardour. But now she felt 
 she had within her a new and very different 
 source of sensation — one that would require 
 no renewal, and would last, unexhausted, be- 
 cause it sprang from truth and love. She 
 whispered as she watched — " My child, my 
 darling ! you have altered my whole exist- 
 ence. You have opened up a new life to 
 me. Until you came, I was good for noth- 
 ing ; now I have an object and a duty. And 
 you, sweet little innocent, the cause of this 
 change in me, sleep there in ignorance of 
 all you have done to me — of all that is 
 happening about yourself, of the grave in- 
 terests which your appearance has set in 
 action. You have fallen here to brighten and 
 to occu^Dy my uselessness, and to show me 
 that I can love ; and perhaps, sweet child, 
 you have fallen here to suffer. But the good 
 that you have done in teaching me that I can 
 feel and act, shall be repaid by me to you in 
 love and gratitude. Through you, poor baby, I 
 have learnt in a few weeks much more about 
 myself than I ever knew before. I am be- 
 ginning to have an involuntary respect for
 
 60 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 myself that is absolutely new to me. But, 
 darling, it is not a respect that gives me 
 vanity ; it grows from a very different root — 
 from the sentiment of utility and duty. How 
 could I have lived to my age without an 
 object ? I see that now ; and I wonder. But 
 yet I did live, in spite of the utter emptiness 
 of my heart. That shows how unconscious 
 we are of our uselessness — until we learn to 
 be useful ; then only do we become able to 
 measure rightly our previous condition. I 
 should like to know whether other lonely 
 women would feel under similar circumstances 
 just what I feel, or whether the sensations of 
 others would take different shapes from mine. 
 It is indeed most glorious to feel — to feel 
 supremely, permanently, I mean ; to feel with 
 the unspeakably satisfying certainty that I 
 shall go on feeling unchangeably, unweaken- 
 ingly, for life. I used to think I felt some- 
 times — when I did my dry duty to the vil- 
 lage people, and saw that I was rendering 
 service, and that they were pleased. As if 
 that were feeling ! Oh no ! there can be 
 no real feeling without love, and I suspect 
 that even love would not create complete feel-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDON. 61 
 
 ing unless combat were annexed to it — as in 
 my case. At least my nature seems to tell 
 me that." 
 
 And then the baby woke, and stretched out 
 its arms to her and pulled her. And there 
 was a scene of tenderness which made Miss 
 Brandon recognise once more that she was 
 chansfed. 
 
 o 
 
 Two days afterwards Mr Cumber brought 
 out to her another letter from Mr George 
 Brandon. It said : — 
 
 " London, eth April 1862. 
 
 " My dear Cumber, — I have received your 
 letter of yesterday, enclosing a copy of a re- 
 port addressed to you from Lisbon by Mr 
 Gray. 
 
 ''I learn from that report — firstly, that 
 proof has been obtained of the death of my 
 brother ; secondly, that the servant said to 
 have been intrusted by my brother with the 
 papers attesting his supposed marriage has 
 disappeared. 
 
 " Under these circumstances, I shall be glad 
 to hear whether you have any grounds for 
 imaorinino- that the evidence you talk of seek-
 
 62 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 ing elsewliere is likely to be obtained within 
 any reasonable period. 
 
 " I should regret to take any steps which 
 might cause pain to my sister, who appears 
 to believe the story of my brother's marriage, 
 and to admit the legitimacy of the child who 
 was brought so strangely to Hurley on the 
 2d February. But you will understand, I am 
 sure, that I cannot allow my own rights, as 
 heir - at - law of my uncle and brother, to 
 remain indefinitely in suspense. — Sincerely 
 yours, George Brandon."
 
 63 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 '' Well, this time George speaks out," said 
 Miss Brandon excitedly to Mr Cumber, when 
 she had read her brother's letter. *' He denies 
 that Charles was married, and he claims Hur- 
 ley for himself. That is what his letter comes 
 to, and that is how he respects the wishes 
 expressed by Charles on his deathbed. What 
 an admirable brother he is ! What an example 
 of goodness and affection he sets us ! I have 
 always mistrusted him, yet I never imagined 
 he could behave in this fashion to his own 
 family. We will fight him to the end, Mr 
 Cumber ; and, please God, we will beat him ! 
 But the duty I have to discharge to Charles 
 and to his child has roused in me a feeling of 
 liability I never had before. I see that this 
 time it will not be sufiicient to lose my 
 temper in order to have my own way. I
 
 64 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 know I am headstrong, but I know also that 
 the law is even more self-willed than I am, 
 and now that I may have to go to law for 
 others and not for myself, I mean for the first 
 time to be extremely calm and extremely 
 prudent. So tell me, please, what is the 
 law ? " 
 
 Mr Cumber answered, ''It is not easy to 
 foresee with certainty how a court or a jury 
 would judge a case of this kind. I think, 
 however, it must be considered probable that 
 if Mr George Brandon takes proceedings to 
 dispute the rights of the child, she would 
 not, under all the circumstances, be regarded 
 as legitimate, in the legal sense of the word, 
 unless we can produce material evidence of 
 the marriage." 
 
 '' Mr Cumber, how can you say so ? " broke 
 in Miss Brandon, unable to restrain herself, 
 and forgetting all her promises of moderation. 
 '' To imply that Claire may perhaps be dis- 
 inherited is to shock me to the very bottom of 
 my heart. If that is what you have to tell 
 me, I do not want to hear it." 
 
 " My dear lady," was Mr Cumber's reply, 
 " you asked me for my opinion as a lawyer.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 65 
 
 not as a man. Permit me, I entreat you, to 
 speak to you as a lawyer, and, whatever I 
 may be forced to say in that capacity, do not 
 doubt my friendship or my sympathy. Per- 
 sonally, I am as convinced as you are that 
 your brother Charles was married, and that 
 this is his lawful daughter ; but my personal 
 conviction is a very different thing from legal 
 proof. And, furthermore, I am bound to 
 point out to you that my position as trustee 
 under the will imposes on me responsibilities 
 of a special kind. I have to see — I trust you 
 will permit me to say it without offending 
 you — that the law of inheritance is obeyed ; 
 and even if the marriage were not disputed by 
 Mr George Brandon, it might be my duty to 
 ascertain, under the singular circumstances 
 which have arisen, who is legally the heir-at- 
 law and the next of kin of General Brandon. If 
 this child is, as I am sure she is, the legitimate 
 daughter of Colonel Charles Brandon, then she 
 is both his heir-at-law and next of kin, and in 
 those two capacities inherits Hurley and the 
 personal property as well, in virtue of the 
 terms of the General's will bequeathing every- 
 thing to her father, or, failing him, to her 
 VOL. L E
 
 66 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 father's heir. But, if the marriage of her 
 parents cannot be legally proved, then your 
 brother George becomes the heir-at-law, and he 
 and yourself conjointly are the next of kin, in 
 which case Mr George would get Hurley ; the 
 personalty, after the legacy to yourself, would 
 be divided equally between him and you, and 
 the child would get nothing. She would not 
 even inherit Colonel Charles Brandon's personal 
 property (supposing him to have made no 
 will). That also would be divided between Mr 
 George and yourself. You see, therefore, that 
 the course pursued by your brother introduces 
 in reality very little change into the nature of 
 the difficulties before us. If he were animated 
 by a friendly spirit, an arrangement might 
 perhaps be effected as regards the disposal of 
 the property; but no arrangement, however 
 friendly, could, if we are unable to obtain 
 evidence of the marriage, bestow on this little 
 child the legal status of her father's heir." 
 
 '^But Charles's letter, Mr Cumber!" ex- 
 claimed Miss Brandon, who had been listening 
 to this statement with scarcely controllable 
 impatience. " Does Charles's own letter count 
 for nothing ? Is his own signed declaration
 
 CLAIRE BEANDOX. 67 
 
 that lie was married, and that Claire is 
 his child, valueless in the eyes of the 
 lawV' 
 
 *'' It would count, I am convinced, for some- 
 thing," was the reply. "It is conclusive 
 evidence to you and me. It would be moral 
 evidence to the world at large. Even the law 
 would look at it, I fully believe, with a certain 
 confidence and sympathy. But remember 
 that it was not written by your brother — it is 
 only signed by him ; and as the man who 
 wrote it is in all probability dead, we can 
 produce, I fear, no proof about it. The law, 
 if we have to resort to it, will not content 
 itself with the testimony of that letter — it will 
 claim certificates and attestations — it will call 
 for witnesses ; and if no such evidence can be 
 produced, the law will harden its heart and 
 say there is no proof. So when you ask 
 me what the law is, I am obliged to tell 
 you that I do not think the child will be 
 refyarded as leo-itimate in law if we fail to 
 
 o o 
 
 show, in the form required, when and where 
 the marriage was performed." 
 
 " But we are going to find out the when 
 and the where ! " exclaimed Miss Brandon.
 
 68 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 " We are going to try to find it out," re- 
 sponded Mr Cumber, " and I trust we shall 
 succeed. That is all we can venture to say for 
 the moment." 
 
 '^ And if we do not find it out ? " asked Miss 
 Brandon^ gloomily. 
 
 "Ah, in that event, I fear the child will be 
 declared to have no legal rights at all. Even 
 the name of Brandon would not properly belong- 
 to her." 
 
 " Good Grod ! " cried Miss Brandon, spring- 
 ing to her feet and throwing up her hands in 
 horror. " The child would have no right to 
 her father's name ? " 
 
 " But if the law refuses to admit that she is 
 her father's child '? " replied Mr Cumber. 
 
 " Oh, Claire, my darling, my poor darling ! " 
 gasped Miss Brandon, breaking into sobs in 
 her distress. " And Charlie too, my dear Char- 
 lie, how little you foresaw this ! What a 
 scoundrel George is ! " 
 
 " No, Miss Brandon, no. Permit me to 
 assure you that Mr George is not at all a 
 scoundrel for acting as he does. His letter to 
 me is moderate in form ; he implies that he is 
 ready to give us time to seek for evidence. I
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 69 
 
 really do not think — if you will allow me to 
 say so — that, taking human nature as it is, and 
 considering what men will do for money, he is 
 to blame for putting in his claim. The circum- 
 stances are peculiar. You must not forget, 
 in your emotion, that your uncle meant Mr 
 George to have the property, and that he 
 told me to prepare a new will to that effect. 
 Morally, therefore, Mr George is fully justified 
 in considering himself to be the proper heir. 
 And as regards the child, the absence of legal 
 proof (if we fail to obtain it) would leave her 
 in a very unsatisfactory position. I spoke 
 
 just now of a friendly arrangement " 
 
 '' No, no, Mr Cumber, I will have no friendly 
 arrangement," interrupted Miss Brandon, with 
 all her old violence. "I will have no friendly ar- 
 rangement at all. Either George will recognise 
 and act upon the dying wishes of his brother, as 
 they are expressed in Charlie's letter to me, or 
 he will dispute them, in which case I will con- 
 sent to no arrangement. The child either is or 
 is not Charlie's child, born in wedlock ; if George 
 says it is not, I will fight him to the last. 
 And furthermore, Mr Cumber, it is not true 
 that he has any moral rights ; it is not true
 
 70 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 that my uncle really meant him to have Hur- 
 ley. He told you he would leave it to him, 
 because he fancied it was right, in principle, 
 to do so, and because, when he consulted you 
 about it, you made no objection ; but when he 
 came back that day from Lorston, after see- 
 ing you — the day he died — he told me he was 
 disgusted at having to do it, and that in his 
 heart he did not wish George to inherit the 
 estate. So, Mr Cumber, do not talk to me 
 about my uncle's intentions ; I know more 
 about them than you do. No, Mr Cumber, 
 George has no rights at all, either moral or 
 legal, and we will fight him and beat him." 
 
 " But, my dear lady," answered Mr Cumber, 
 increasing his softness of tone in proportion to 
 the growing asperity of Miss Brandon s lan- 
 guage, '* it is not possible to fight without 
 weapons. If we have no arms in our hands, 
 we can only claw and scratch, we cannot fight. 
 And you must let me remind you that, thus 
 far, we have no arms." 
 
 '* We will find them, Mr Cumber ; we will 
 forge them by force of will and energy. We 
 will hunt all over France, and we will trace 
 the marriage. We know the date, approxi-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 71 
 
 matelj. We will put advertisements into the 
 newspapers. AYe will offer rewards for infor- 
 mation. We will employ detectives — you said 
 so yourself. AVe will follow Charles from place 
 to place. We will search out his acquaint- 
 ances. Charles's honour and Charles's truth 
 are at stake, as well as the name and the posi- 
 tion of his child. Charles has said that he was 
 married, and it is our duty to prove it, Mr 
 Camber." 
 
 And Miss Brandon stopped, out of breath, 
 having poured out all these declarations in 
 one burst. 
 
 " Of course, of course," answered Mr Cum- 
 ber, " we will do all this and as much more 
 as we can. But we must suppose that as 
 Colonel Charles Brandon intended to conceal 
 his marriage, he took all possible precautions 
 to surround it with secrecy, and that we shall 
 have in that fact (if, as I expect^ it is a fact) 
 an obstacle the more to vanquish. The whole 
 case presents — I cannot conceal my opinion — 
 an appearance of growing difficulty and uncer- 
 tainty, and it is my duty to point out to you 
 that I do not regard success as assured. We 
 need proof, not only of the marriage, but of
 
 72 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 the child's birth as well ; evidence of the first 
 would be of little use without evidence of the 
 second, so our task is double. Considering 
 everything, considering especially the gravity 
 of the consequences of failure, it is my duty to 
 suggest to you that, notwithstanding what you 
 said just now, a friendly arrangement with Mr 
 George Brandon, on the basis of the second 
 will which your uncle gave me verbal instruc- 
 tions to prepare (although you say he regretted 
 he had done so), would get over the more 
 serious of our difficulties ; for, of course, the 
 condition of it would be that the child's birth 
 should not be publicly disputed. Having now 
 laid my views before you, I leave you to de- 
 cide. The power of decision is clearly yours. 
 Colonel Brandon has placed his child in your 
 hands, by his letter to you, and you have, 
 therefore, the right to act as what is called 
 the child's ' next friend ' — that is to say, its 
 representative before the law." 
 
 *' I accept that position and that responsi- 
 bility," replied Miss Brandon, with sudden 
 calm and deep earnestness. '' Nothing could 
 be clearer from my standpoint than the duty 
 I have to perform, and I will listen to no com-
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 73 
 
 promises. My brother, on his deathbed, con- 
 fided his child to me, telling me at the same 
 time of his marriage. I accept the charge, as 
 a whole, mth all its meanings and all its con- 
 sequences. The first of its meanings is, that 
 Claire is the lawful child of Charles. The first 
 of its consequences is, that I have to get the 
 child recognised in that quality. I can admit 
 nothing^ else : I can think of nothino- else. 
 Besides, I feel within me that we shall obtain 
 the proofs. The extraordinary disappearance 
 of Henry Blaine and the consequent loss of 
 the papers he was bringing, have created 
 difficulties which no one could have foreseen ; 
 but my nature does not permit me to doubt 
 that difiiculties, whatever they be, can be 
 vanquished by effort and perseverance. My 
 heart too, as well as my will, is bent upon 
 success. I love Claire with my whole soul, 
 and it is impossible for me to suppose that, 
 in such a case, a case in which my brother s 
 honour and his daughter's name are at stake, 
 fate will have the injustice, the cruelty, to 
 decide against us. Therefore, Mr Cumber, 
 with all deference to your opinion, and with 
 warm thanks to you for giving it to me, we
 
 74 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 will maintain our position as it is. We will 
 claim for Claire her rights, her entire rights, as 
 daughter and heir of Colonel Charles Brandon 
 — which she is." 
 
 Mr Cumber reflected for some moments, 
 and then said, with a good deal of gravity, 
 " The decision you have adopted places me 
 in a very painful situation. So long as you 
 had not declared definitively that you will 
 resist Mr George Brandon's claim, if he makes 
 one, it was unnecessary for me to say what I 
 am now about to say ; and as all my sympathies 
 are with you, and as I am as anxious as your- 
 self to obtain proofs of the marriage, I have 
 worked on with you up to the present. But 
 after what you have just said, I am bound to 
 point out to you that, whatever be my feelings 
 as your old personal friend, I may be forced, 
 in my capacity of trustee of your uncle's will, 
 to take up an attitude which might not be 
 identical with — which might, indeed, be in 
 opposition to — your own. As trustee of the 
 will, I am bound to retain entire liberty of 
 action, and it would neither be delicate nor 
 rio[ht for me to act as solicitor for a litiojant 
 with reference to a will of which I am
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 75 
 
 myself the trustee. Consequently, my clear 
 Miss Brandon, I am now obliged, with infinite 
 regret, after what you have just said, to ask 
 you to choose another adviser for the purposes 
 you have in view. I will do everything I can 
 to aid you to discover the truth — it is my duty 
 to do so ; I most earnestly hope you will 
 succeed ; but now that you have decided, 
 finally, that you will fight the case, I cannot 
 continue, technically, to act for you. It would 
 be altogether irregular and improper for me 
 to do so." 
 
 This sudden and unexpected declaration 
 paralysed Miss Brandon. She stared at Mr 
 Cumber as if she did not understand him ; she 
 remained for a minute motionless; it was 
 evident that the blow had stunned her. When 
 she began to rally, she pressed her hand to her 
 head, then she looked vaguely round her, and 
 at last, in a low voice and with much efibrt, 
 she said, '' Mr Cumber, I respect your scruples. 
 To a certain extent, even, I comprehend them. 
 But to lose your professional aid is, in my 
 position, a most cruel addition to my cares. 
 Tell me, at all events, what I had better do. 
 Without you, as with you, I go on with the
 
 76 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 battle ; but tell me — I suppose you can do so 
 without impropriety — to whom can I confide 
 the case '? " 
 
 " I was on the point of suggesting to you 
 to select my London agent, Mr Holmes ; he 
 is a very safe man, and I recommend him 
 strongly to you. And for anything you may 
 need here, Mr Gray — who will, no doubt, be 
 back immediately — can act for you on account 
 of Mr Holmes. All that it may be possible to 
 do myself shall be done. I beg you not to 
 doubt that." 
 
 And then Mr Cumber left, and Miss Bran- 
 don went to the child's room, and took her 
 in her arms, and looked at her wistfully and 
 sadly, and tried to smile and talk to her, but 
 could not. 
 
 The next morning Mr Cumber sent out 
 word that an answer had arrived from Mrs 
 Blaine, stating that her son Henry had on his 
 left shoulder the scar of a sabre-cut he had re- 
 ceived in India when he was a soldier there. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day Mr Gray 
 returned to Lorston. Mr Cumber came with 
 him at once to Miss Brandon's cottage, and 
 the trousers he had brought from Lisbon were
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 77 
 
 examined. They were grey, and tlie brace 
 button on the left side of the waistband was 
 sewn with thread which, though discoloured 
 and darkened by soaking in dirty water, was 
 almost white in comparison with that which 
 held the other buttons. The nurse immedi- 
 ately recognised the trousers, notwithstanding 
 their stained condition, and declared unhesi- 
 tatingly that the button was the one sewn on 
 by her before she had embarked at Lisbon. 
 
 " There is now no room for doubt," said 
 Miss Brandon. " The double proof of the 
 scar and the button is decisive. It was Henry 
 Blaine. The letter is gone." 
 
 And then there w^as a silence. After a 
 w^hile Mr Cumber said, " As we drove here, I 
 have talked over with Mr Gray the details of 
 his report. He discovered nothing more dur- 
 ing his last week in Lisbon, and I fear we 
 must regard that part of the subject as ex- 
 hausted. The idea of oflfering a reward for 
 the recovery of the letter occurred to Mr Gray, 
 and he inquired what could be done in that 
 direction. Unfortunately, he found that, in 
 addition to the ordinary improbabilities that 
 such a course would produce any result, it
 
 78 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 would be rendered substantially impracticable 
 by the unwillingness shown to him by the 
 Portuguese authorities to promise a pardon to 
 any person who might bring the letter. We 
 must now take it as a fact that the papers 
 which Blaine was to deliver to General Bran- 
 don have disappeared. You have decided, 
 Miss Brandon, to seek elsewhere for evidence 
 of the marriao^e and of the child's birth. 
 Would you like Mr Holmes to come down 
 here to talk the matter over, and to receive 
 your instructions '? " 
 
 " Certainly ; if you please. And I should 
 like my uncle's papers to be looked through 
 carefully, in order to be quite sure that no letters 
 from Charles are amongst them. I know my 
 uncle never kept letters ; but sometimes, by 
 accident, they escape destruction ; and it is 
 so essential to trace the places from whence 
 Charles wrote, that it will be prudent to 
 make a complete examination. I think, too, 
 w^e ought to see whether Mrs Blaine possesses 
 any letters from her son. Where Charles was, 
 Henry Blaine was ; so places mentioned by 
 the latter would put us on the track of the 
 former. Besides, it is our duty to break to
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 79 
 
 Mrs Blaine the news of her son's death. I 
 suggest, therefore, if you have no objection, 
 that Mr Gray should go to Mrs Blaine for the 
 double purpose of acquainting her with what 
 has happened, and of inquiring about the 
 letters." 
 
 " I quite agree with you," said Mr Cumber. 
 '' I have already examined your uncle's papers, 
 but I will go through them again, and I will 
 write to Mr Holmes to come as soon as he 
 can. Mr Gray shall go to-morrow to Somer- 
 setshire to see Mrs Blaine." 
 
 The search through General Brandon's 
 papers produced no results at all ; not one 
 single letter from anybody was found. 
 
 But Mr Gray was more successful ; he 
 brought back with him eight letters from 
 Henry Blaine to his mother, which, with 
 their envelopes, she had carefully preserved. 
 These letters were of various dates, extending 
 from 1859 to the end of 1861. They came 
 successively from Kouen, Biarritz, Versailles, 
 and Lisbon. The first four of them were from 
 Rouen, and were dated May and November 
 1859, and January and April 1860. As 
 the marriage was known to have taken
 
 80 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 place somewhere about the first of those 
 four dates, and the death of Mrs Brandon 
 about the last of them, it seemed not un- 
 reasonable to infer that the marriage and the 
 death occurred in Eouen or its neighbourhood. 
 The letters themselves contained nothing of 
 the faintest interest ; they were very short, 
 and made no allusion to events or plans. 
 There was, indeed, an appearance of studied 
 reticence about them w^iich confirmed the 
 idea previously expressed by Mr Cumber that 
 Colonel Brandon (and consequently Blaine) 
 had tried to conceal his movements. And 
 there was a peculiarity about the four letters 
 from Eouen which gave force to this presump- 
 tion. While the letters from Biarritz, Ver- 
 sailles, and Lisbon — written after Mrs Bran- 
 don's death — mentioned, as if there were 
 nothing to conceal, the hotel at which Blaine 
 was staying at each of those places, the 
 letters from Eouen gave only Poste Eestante 
 as the address to which his mother was to 
 send her answers. This indication, repeated 
 four times from the same place during a whole 
 year, could not have been due to any tem- 
 porary uncertainty of abode ; it was mani-
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 81 
 
 festly intentional, and, under the circum- 
 stances, the intention could only be to con- 
 ceal the name of the hotel or house where 
 Colonel Brandon lived. 
 
 These considerations seemed to point so 
 distinctly to Eouen, or some village round it, 
 as the Colonel's probable place of residence, 
 at the moment of his marriage and during 
 the life of his wife, that Miss Brandon's heart 
 leaped with joy, and she cried out, " AYe have 
 found it ! " 
 
 Mr Cumber and Mr Gray agreed that the 
 evidence supplied by these letters seemed to 
 justify the hope that they had obtained a clue. 
 
 As soon as they had left. Miss Brandon, in 
 the fulness of her suddenly born confidence 
 and hope, sat down and thought. It was a 
 most unusual act for her to think by herself, 
 as other people do. Her habitual way of 
 thinking was to pour out a monologue to 
 some one else ; but this time she felt it would 
 be a desecration of her dreams to tell them 
 aloud. Fancies which seemed to her almost 
 holy had rushed into her since she had found 
 herself able to believe, a few minutes before, 
 that she had got on to a track at last. To 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 her emotional nature success seemed, for the 
 moment, certain. Doubt disappeared. She 
 floated on a bright sea of hope. Eagerly, 
 delightedly, in the intensity of her longing 
 to discharge what she considered to be her 
 mission, in the effusion of her duty towards 
 her brother, and of her fervent love for his 
 child, she dreamed a daylight dream. A fit 
 of intoxicating motherhood came over her. 
 The life of Claire appeared before her. She 
 imagined she was installed with her at Hurley 
 Park. She thought of the prodigious edu- 
 cation she would give her ; of the means she 
 would employ to bring her into contact with 
 all the forms of knowledge, skill, and grace. 
 She should be taught what no girl had ever 
 learnt before, and be taught without effort, 
 by mere absorption. And then she thought 
 of her grown into a young woman, all beauty, 
 intelligence, and charm, possessing all capa- 
 cities, all aptitudes, all fascinations. She 
 thought of the effect she would produce, of 
 the admiration she would excite, of the con- 
 test between men to win her. She thought 
 of her as wife and mother, superb in person, 
 matchless in conduct, apart in wisdom, courted,
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDON. 83 
 
 loved, and honoured. And in her vision she 
 saw in Claire the outcome of her own oruidance, 
 of her own efforts to produce a perfect woman, 
 and she rejoiced in the future of her work. 
 Her nature overflowed with the imaorination 
 
 o 
 
 of triumphant maternity. She decided that 
 she would be the most successful mother the 
 world had ever known. She had not, for the 
 instant, one doubt of ber capacity to be so. 
 She had, indeed, made progress since the day, 
 a few months before, when she had looked 
 '^ith terror at the mission thrust upon her, 
 and had told herself she was incapable to 
 fulfil it. 
 
 And as she dreamed all this, the nurse 
 brought Claire in from the garden, and the 
 child, who was beginning to speak, held out 
 her arms and called Miss Brandon " Tatte," 
 which was her way of pronouncing Xante. 
 And the dream faded away and was replaced 
 by a sweet reality of tenderness. That after- 
 noon the cottage was full of momentary hap- 
 piness, and trust, and fondness. Berthe had 
 her full share of it, for events had brought 
 her into such close and special contact with 
 Miss Brandon, that sorrows and joys about
 
 84 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 the child were beginning to be almost in 
 common between them ; and as the nurse 
 was a good woman and fairly intelligent as 
 well, her new mistress had found it natural 
 to extend to her some part of the interest 
 she felt about the child. 
 
 The next day Mr Holmes came down from 
 London. The case was explained to him in 
 all its details. He took it up with warmth, 
 thought there was no room for reasonable 
 doubt that the marriage had really been 
 performed somewhere in the neighbourhood 
 of Rouen, expressed hopes of success, and 
 returned to town to choose a detective and 
 send him off at once. 
 
 For some while after this Miss Brandon 
 remained in the state of delighted trust into 
 which she had been thrown by the finding 
 of the Rouen clue. She passed the hours in 
 eager waiting for the arrival of the expected 
 proofs, in thought of the arrangements to 
 be carried out so soon as all was settled, and 
 in tender dreamy playing with the child. 
 All violence was gone from her. 
 
 Yet, discovery did not come. 
 
 Mr Holmes wrote frequently, reported that
 
 CLAIEE BRANDON. 85 
 
 the detective was actively at work ; but added 
 always that, so far, he had unravelled nothing. 
 Day followed day ; letter followed letter. 
 Delay made Miss Brandon impatient, nervous, 
 apprehensive. Hope lessened ; disquietude 
 increased, and, by degrees, the conditions of 
 biting anxiety and suspense through which 
 she had already passed, while waiting for 
 Mr Gray's report from Lisbon, grew up once 
 more. This time, indeed, the strain upon 
 her was even greater than before, for she 
 had borne so much emotion, that she had 
 become, at last, distinctly timid. She, who 
 had always been fearless and resolute, had 
 grown, under the pressure of the new cares 
 that had fallen on her, restless, diffident, and 
 sometimes even frightened. The very ardour 
 of her affection for Claire, instead of bringing 
 her calm, contributed, on the contrary, to aug- 
 ment her disquietude, for it awakened in her 
 a throbbing sense of responsibility, and kept 
 her in an almost unceasing consciousness that 
 she, and she alone, was accountable for the 
 future of the child. All dreams had dis- 
 appeared ; hope had almost vanished too ; 
 the hard truth alone remained.
 
 86 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 In this condition, sometimes despairing, 
 sometimes in stubborn confidence, she waited 
 for good news. 
 
 But there was no good news. 
 
 The detective kept Mr Holmes informed of 
 all he did ; but of practical results there were 
 none. Not a trace of Colonel Brandon, or of 
 anybody resembling him, could be discovered 
 in Rouen. The advertisements inserted in the 
 local papers brought no replies. Weeks passed. 
 The clue that had appeared so guiding had 
 led to nothing. It seemed as if the precau- 
 tions supposed to have been taken by Colonel 
 Brandon in order to ensure secrecy had been 
 too complete and too successful. No informa- 
 tion of any kind could be obtained. 
 
 Miss Brandon was almost broken down 
 with disappointment. She grew silent, even 
 with the child. 
 
 And Mr George Brandon, after writing 
 several letters to Mr Cumber, inquiring, 
 pressingly, what his sister meant to do, at 
 last gave formal notice of his intention- to 
 dispute the legitimacy of the child. 
 
 In the midst of this, one morning, the 
 detective appeared unexpectedly at the cot-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 87 
 
 tage and informed Miss Brandon that he had 
 
 come to make a verbal report to her on the 
 
 position of the case. 
 
 He began by delivering a letter from Mr 
 
 Holmes informino- her that Mr Georo-e Bran- 
 ca o 
 
 don had commenced proceedings against the 
 infant and Mr Cumber as trustee, and that 
 the trial might be expected to come on at no 
 distant date. Then, with some emphasis, he 
 stated that he had been unable to find any- 
 proof whatever of the marriage. All that he 
 had effected was to collect circumstantial 
 evidence which seemed to indicate that 
 Colonel Brandon had made certain prepara- 
 tions with a view to marrying in France. He 
 explained that, according to the law of France, 
 no one, whether he be foreigner or native, can 
 be married there without producing, firstly, 
 his own certificate of birth, in order to show 
 his age ; and secondly, either a declaration of 
 consent to his marriage from his father and 
 mother, or legal evidence that his father and 
 mother are dead. The detective went on to 
 say that, on learning this at Kouen, he had 
 returned at once to England in order to 
 consult Mr Holmes as to whether it would
 
 88 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 not be advisable to try to ascertain whether 
 Colonel Brandon had obtained the necessary 
 papers. It was evident that if he had not 
 done so, it would be idle to go on imagining 
 — in the face of the French law — that he 
 could have been legally married in France ; 
 while if, on the contrary, he really had pro- 
 cured the documents in question, that fact 
 would furnish very strong presumptive evi- 
 dence that it was his intention to effect a 
 marriage in France. 
 
 Mr Holmes agreed entirely with this view, 
 but thought that, under the circumstances, 
 it would be better to say nothing to Miss 
 Brandon while the inquiry was going on. 
 So he wrote, privately, to Mr Cumber, and 
 was informed by him that Colonel Brandon 
 had been born at Cheltenham, and that his 
 father and mother had both died at Brighton. 
 
 o 
 
 With these indications to guide him, the de- 
 tective had succeeded, without much difficul- 
 ty, in discovering, in each place, the churches 
 where the child had been christened and the 
 parents buried. He learnt that, in the month 
 of February 1859, Colonel Brandon had him- 
 self appeared at Cheltenham and at Brighton,
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 89 
 
 and had asked for copies of the certificates 
 of his OTVTL baptism, and of his father's and 
 mother's deaths. There was an unusual cir- 
 cumstance connected with the matter which 
 caused it to be remembered ; the copies, at 
 the particular request of Colonel Brandon, had 
 been sio^ned before a mao^istrate, the Colonel 
 explaining, though with evident reluctance 
 and hesitation, that he required them for 
 use abroad, and that therefore they needed 
 to be properly legalised. 
 
 The detective then went on to say, that as 
 all this had happened only a few weeks before 
 the supposed date of the marriage ; as such 
 documents, expressly authenticated for foreign 
 use, could not be supjDOsed to be required by 
 the Colonel for any ordinary purpose ; and 
 as, on the contrary, they would be indis- 
 pensable to him in the event of his purposing 
 to marry in France, it seemed reasonable to 
 infer that they were fetched by him in person, 
 in view of the marriage which he wrote after- 
 wards to his sister to say that he had con- 
 tracted. 
 
 The detective finished his story by saying 
 that Mr Holmes had instructed him to come
 
 90 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 down to Hurley in order to explain the 
 position. 
 
 Miss Brandon listened to him with keen 
 disappointment, but, strangely enough, with 
 no desire to interrupt him. Experience was 
 beginning to exercise upon her its usual 
 calming influence, and — sometimes, at all 
 events — it helped her to remain quiet. On 
 this occasion she perceived at once that, 
 however satisfactory it might be to receive 
 additional moral testimony of the probability 
 of the marriage, the fact that the Colonel 
 had fetched the papers supplied no legal 
 proof. Still, she felt comforted by the pre- 
 sumptive evidence obtained by the detective, 
 and, naturally, saw in it au additional motive 
 for persisting in the course she had adopted. 
 Believing, as she did with her whole soul, 
 that the marriage was a reality, it seemed to 
 her that even judges ought to be somewhat 
 influenced by a story in which her brother's 
 letter declaring that he had been married was 
 now supported by the discovery that, shartly 
 before the supposed date of the marriage, he 
 had taken steps which could only be in- 
 terpreted as meaning that he was preparing
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 91 
 
 to marry. It was in this state of raind that 
 she began to question the detective. 
 
 " You say," she said, " that no marriage can 
 take place in France without producing the 
 papers you have mentioned. Do you mean 
 the civil marriage or the religious marriage ? " 
 
 *' The civil marriage, of course ; the marriao-e 
 at the Mairie, which is the onlv marriage that 
 the law recognises. No such papers are re- 
 Cjuired for the religious marriage. But as 
 regards the religious marriage there is some- 
 thing else that I was going to tell you. It 
 appears that no Catholic can be married to a 
 Protestant in a Catholic church without a 
 special dispensation from the bishop of the 
 diocese, and that the dispensation is only 
 granted on condition that all the children shall 
 be brought up as Catholics. Now, as Colonel 
 Brandon was a Protestant, such a dispensation 
 would, of course, have been recjuired in his 
 case ; and as it results from his letter to you 
 that he did pledge himself that the children 
 should be Catholics, I thought I had got on to 
 a new clue, and that if we could find the trace 
 of the dispensation we should in all probability 
 get at the marriage itself. But when I went
 
 92 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 to inquire at the ofSce of the Archbishop of 
 Rouen, I was informed that no such permission 
 had been applied for. I expressed surprise at 
 this, because I had reason to believe that the 
 marriage had been celebrated in the diocese of 
 Rouen ; and it was then suggested, by one of 
 the priests I saw, that perhaps Colonel Brandon 
 had become a Catholic himself, in which case 
 no dispensation would have been required." 
 
 " Charles a Roman Catholic ! " exclaimed 
 Harriet Brandon. " I do not believe it. And 
 yet, anything is possible. After doing all the 
 rest, he might have done that too. But, to go 
 back to your inquiries, is it possible you have 
 really discovered nothing at Rouen '? Have 
 you visited the villages all round? Did my 
 brother hide himself so completely that not a 
 single sign of him can be detected ? " 
 
 " I have been to every village within twenty 
 miles of Rouen," was the reply. " I have 
 hunted about even at Havre. I have adver- 
 tised in every paper in the Department. I 
 have put special advertisements for the wet 
 nurse into the Paris papers. I have employed 
 local agents and have offered rewards for in- 
 formation ; but I have learnt nothing at all.
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 93 
 
 If Colonel Brandon really did pass twelve 
 months in or about Eouen, he must have taken 
 very special measures to conceal himself. I 
 have been to Versailles and Biarritz, and have 
 found the hotels where the Colonel stayed with 
 the child and the servants, but that was after 
 his wife's death, and no one there knew any- 
 thing about her. I have followed the detective 
 business for twenty years, and have had a good 
 many troublesome cases, but I never was so 
 completely beaten as I am this time. I do 
 believe the Colonel meant to marry — what he 
 did about those papers is evidence of that to 
 any reasonable person ; but that he absolutely 
 did marry I can't prove yet, and I don't know 
 w^hether I ever shall." 
 
 *' You don't know whether you ever shall ! " 
 exclaimed Miss Brandon, the old impetuosity 
 rushing up again. " You don't know whether 
 you ever shall ! How can a man like you say 
 that '? Surely, with your experience, you can 
 suggest further means of action ? Surely you 
 are not going to admit that you can do no more? 
 If I were a man I would never acknowledge 
 that I was defeated ; I would fight on unceas- 
 ingly, and be killed rather than give way."
 
 94 CLAIKE BRANDON. 
 
 ^' Then, if you will allow me to say so, 
 maam, without oifencling you," replied the 
 detective, " it is rather fortunate for you that 
 you are not a man, for, according to that, you 
 would be killed a great many times in your 
 life. It seems to me, after a good deal of 
 practice of all this, that it is very useful and 
 very saving of labour to know when to stop ; 
 and though it is against my interest to declare 
 that I can't succeed, — because a man like me 
 is always expected to find out something — if 
 not, he doesn't seem to earn his money, — I 
 think we should do well to give this up. You 
 see I have been for two months on the spot, 
 out there at Eouen, and I have been to the 
 bottom of it, and I can't find the bottom, and 
 I don't believe anybody can. There is not a 
 trace of it there, and we have no other clue 
 whatever. I do think the Colonel was mar- 
 ried, but he made too good a secret of it, and 
 he has shut the door on us. It was not at 
 Eouen, ma'am ; and nobody can guess where 
 else it was." 
 
 *' But the consequences of failure would be 
 frightful," cried Harriet Brandon, throwing 
 her arms up in horror at the thought. '' We
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 95 
 
 must succeed. We must go on until Ave 
 do." 
 
 " Ob yes, ma'am, I know that. Mr Holmes 
 told me the whole story, of course, and I know 
 what hangs at the end of it. If you wish to 
 employ anybody else, I will stand out of the 
 way. I should like, professionally, to see the 
 thing found out, because I do believe the 
 Colonel got himself married — somewhere ; but, 
 as I said just now, so far as I am concerned, I 
 see no chance left." 
 
 When the detective was gone, Harriet Bran- 
 don walked up and down the room and medi- 
 tated, gloomily. 
 
 " Give up ? " she said to herself. " Give up ? 
 I give up 1 Give up the mission that has been 
 intrusted to me, the duty that has been im- 
 posed upon me, the work that has fallen to me 
 to execute ? Give up the joy that was opening 
 before me ; give up my foremost obligation as 
 a second mother 1 Give up my promise to 
 Charlie, to the child, to myself ? Never I 
 Giving up means all that, and, furthermore, 
 for me to give up would mean that I doubt. 
 Others may doubt — I fear they will — but I ? 
 To me the certainty is utter ; and to give up
 
 96 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 would imply that I feel no certainty. It would 
 be an eternal shame to me to give up. I could 
 not look Claire in the face again if I did. Her 
 place in life, her name, her honour, are in my 
 hands. Never will I give up defending them. 
 Charlie, I will do my duty to you and to your 
 child, and you shall be content with me." 
 
 And she sat down, resolutely, and wrote to 
 Mr Holmes and to Mr Cumber, and told them 
 both that defeat in an action would, in her 
 eyes, be more honourable than voluntary re- 
 treat ; that nothing would make her yield, and 
 that she would go on to the end, whatever the 
 end might be.
 
 97 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 Time passed. The trial was approaching. 
 Harriet Brandon, in spite of her certainty, in 
 spite of her character — perhaps, indeed, by 
 natural reaction from her certainty and her 
 character — was growing nervous. She could 
 neither eat nor sleep. A new anxiety, even 
 more wearing than the others, had pushed 
 itself into her mind ; she began to ask herseK 
 whether, after all, she was acting prudently in 
 continuing to resist. When once this pre- 
 occupation had laid hold of her, she found 
 herself unable to shake it off; it irritated her ; 
 it absorbed her. Morally she had not a doubt ; 
 in principle she was quite positive it was her 
 duty to fight on to the end. Her strong feel- 
 ings of right and wrong, backed up by her 
 belligerent instincts, made it impossible for 
 her to imagine, even for an instant, that there 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 98 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 could be two roads open to her so far as 
 conscience and rectitude of conduct were con- 
 cerned. But, in practice, there were other 
 considerations to be taken into account. The 
 situation was not made up exclusively of 
 principles, or of instincts, or of conscience, or 
 of right and wrons^. There were facts in it 
 as well, and those facts were nearly all against 
 her. Both Mr Cumber and Mr Holmes had 
 given her to understand that, as no evidence 
 was forthcoming, they disapproved her deter- 
 mination to hold out. She was forced, within 
 herself, to recognise that the future moral 
 position of Claire was at stake ; that defeat 
 might mean, for her, the deprivation of in- 
 finitely more than money and estate ; that 
 it might entail the loss of name and station 
 too. And name and station could still perhaps 
 be saved by giving way ! 
 
 Harriet Brandon groaned in spirit. She 
 saw all this more clearly each day. And yet 
 she could not make up her mind to yield. 
 Her theory of duty was to accept no com- 
 promise in anything ; she had applied that 
 rule to all the small difficulties she had en- 
 countered in her dull existence, and thought
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 99 
 
 she could look back with satisfaction to the 
 results she had so obtained. It seemed to her 
 that she had always won, in the long-run, by 
 standing up, without caring for consequences, 
 for what she had supposed to be right against 
 what she had supposed to be wrong. But she 
 could not conceal from herself that her expe- 
 rience had been confined to little questions in 
 which no serious interests had been involved. 
 In the present case, on the contrary, the issues 
 were momentous, morally as well as materially, 
 and the terrible responsibility she might incur, 
 if she lost the battle, became appallingly dis- 
 tinct. The whole morrow of a helpless, un- 
 conscious child was in her hands. The burden 
 of decision seemed awful to her. 
 
 Yet still she felt she could not — should 
 not — yield. 
 
 Then came revulsion the other way. What 
 was responsibility after all ? Cowards might 
 be afraid of it; but she had never been a 
 coward. She, Harriet Brandon, had feared 
 nothing in the past ; why should she fear now, 
 with one of the noblest causes to defend that 
 ever fell to the charo-e of man or woman ? 
 
 o 
 
 No ; her duty evidently was to go straight on.
 
 100 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 She oscillated from one impression to an- 
 other, and could bring herself to no decision. 
 Sometimes she grew violent, and blamed her- 
 self indignantly for a hesitation which she 
 deemed unworthy of a brave nature. But self- 
 reproach produced no more effect upon her 
 than reason did. She went on wavering. 
 
 Suddenly, after weeks "of vacillation and 
 suffering, when she was utterly worn out by 
 agitation, an idea rushed into her head. She 
 would go and see George himself, point out to 
 him the wickedness of his conduct, and make 
 him change it. 
 
 In her feverish state this proceeding seemed 
 to her so natural and so simple that she won- 
 dered it had not occurred to her lonof before. 
 She did not stop to weigh it. She felt a deep 
 relief in having invented a plan which would 
 lead her to immediate action, and her sole 
 thought was to carry it into execution. In 
 her sudden eagerness she decided to go up at 
 once and have the matter out. She packed 
 up some clothes, drove to Lorston station, -and 
 took the first train to London. 
 
 During the journey she endeavoured to pre- 
 pare a speech to deliver to her brother. But
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 101 
 
 she was incapable of putting two sentences to- 
 gether. She could not even, so excited was 
 she, concentrate her thoughts on the interview 
 she was seeking ; they wandered off to other 
 subjects, and then came burstiug back, with 
 an intolerable jar, to the work before her. Her 
 head became confused : her emotion, thouofh 
 continually increasing, grew vague and object- 
 less, and by the time the train reached town 
 she scarcely remembered why she had come 
 there. 
 
 She had, however, enough consciousness left 
 in her to go mechanically to a hotel to leave 
 her luo^ojaoe, and then to drive to Georo;e 
 Brandon's house. 
 
 She found him at home. 
 
 The instant her eyes met his her senses 
 cleared again. The full perception of her 
 errand tore back into her brain. The passion 
 of battle shook her. She felt herself, in one 
 second, fit to fight a giant. Her strength, her 
 will, her courage, were suddenly limitless. She 
 stood up to her full height, threw back her 
 head defiantly, and said, " You need not look 
 astonished, George. You know why I have 
 come here. You know it well enough without
 
 102 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 my telling you. Give up this wicked action. 
 Behave as a brother ought to behave, and join 
 yourself with me to do our duty to the living 
 and the dead." 
 
 George Brandon, who had placed a chair for 
 his sister, and had sat down in the supposition 
 that she would do the same, rose again and 
 answered, " I presume, Harriet, that your 
 meaning is to ask me to abandon my uncle's 
 property to the child you have picked up ? " 
 
 " The child I have picked up ? " repeated 
 Harriet slowly, with staring eyes and with a 
 voice of mixed unbelief and horror. * " The 
 cljild I have picked up 1 You say that of 
 your own brother's daughter '? You say that 
 of the child your own brother sent to my care 
 from his dying bed ? Great God ! have you 
 a heart ? You call yourself a Brandon ? In 
 the name of duty, truth, and honour ; in the 
 name of love, of right, of goodness ; in the 
 name of the blood that runs within us both ; 
 in the name of all the Brandons who have 
 transmitted to us an unsullied memory,^ — I 
 summon you to retract those hideous words." 
 
 George looked coldly at her, and observed, 
 with complete self-control, *' You are excited.
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 103 
 
 Harriet. Perhaps it is natural you should be 
 so. But excitement is a bad guide in busi- 
 ness, and I do not allow it to aflfect me. This 
 is a matter of pure business. I do not believe 
 — no, do not interrupt me, if you please, I 
 shall not be long — I do not believe that Charles 
 was married. I do not believe one word of 
 the amazing tale to which it has pleased you 
 to give credence. If I believed it, I should 
 act as you do, and should need no pressure 
 from you to allow this child to take the pro- 
 perty. But, I repeat, I do not believe it. In 
 my eyes, the story of the marriage has been 
 concocted for a purpose. You have done your 
 utmost to obtain proof of it, and have failed. 
 I have waited till you have failed. You can- 
 not lay before me, after all your researches, 
 one sino-le atom of evidence. Your sole motive 
 for believing is, that you received, with the 
 child, a letter written, avowedly, by a servant 
 who disappeared immediately afterwards, and 
 purporting to be signed by Charles. Did he 
 sign it '? and if he signed it, with what motive 
 did he sign it ? At the best it is a terribly 
 suspicious affair. That the child was his I am 
 ready to admit as possible — if that is any plea-
 
 104 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 sure to you. But that the child was born in 
 wedlock I utterly deny. In consequence, it 
 is my intention — my definitive intention and 
 decision, after waiting for all these months — 
 to insist on my legal right to the property." 
 
 " That is your final answer, George ? " 
 
 " That is my final answer." 
 
 " No appeal will move you ? " 
 
 " No appeal will move me. I have given 
 you the reason why." 
 
 '' Well, then, I will go," said Harriet 
 Brandon, in a broken tone. " I have humbled 
 myself in coming to yon. I thought it was 
 my duty to point out to you the scandal of 
 all this, to tell you that you are dragging our 
 name into the mud, to tell you that you are 
 robbing an orphan of her rights. I expected to 
 produce some efi*ect upon you — not by my 
 words, but by the simple honesty of my cause. 
 It seems that I have failed. Can nothing 
 touch you ? Do you mean to tell the world, 
 in a public trial, that, in your opinion, Charles, 
 for an unworthy purpose, signed a wilful lie 
 when he was dying ? How much do you 
 want? Take Hurley — take all that comes to 
 me. I need nothing but the child. It is
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 105 
 
 money that yoii are after — money alone. You 
 do not want the truth — but income. What is 
 your price ? I give you my share. But leave 
 the child her place in the daylight as her 
 father's daughter. Leave to me and to her, 
 George, a name that has not been stained 
 by the conduct of you — my brother.'' She 
 trembled, hesitated, made evidently a des- 
 perate effort, and then said, " On my knees, 
 I supplicate you." And she knelt down and 
 joined her hands in passionate entreaty. 
 
 " I have listened," replied her brother, '' to 
 the extremely unpleasant observations you 
 have thought fit to address to me. The 
 only answer — pray get off your knees — the 
 only answer I have to make is that, as I 
 have already told you, I mean to assert my 
 rights as my uncle's heir. If you do not 
 wish, as you say, to drag our name into the 
 mud, you have only to give way yourself, 
 and not defend the action." 
 
 " Then nothing will move you 1 Very 
 good. I leave you. From this moment I 
 cease to be your sister. From this moment 
 I will never speak to you, never forgive 
 you. I will not curse you, because that sort
 
 106 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 of thing burns a woman's mouth, and because 
 it is not my business to punish you. But 
 punishment will come to you. It is possible — 
 it is even probable, I fear — that you will win 
 your action. But success will bring you no 
 joy, and when the day of retaliation comes — 
 and come it will — then it will be my turn." 
 
 She turned her back upon him and went 
 away. 
 
 The next morning she was at home again ; 
 but she had no memory of her return to the 
 hotel, of the night she had passed through, or 
 of her journey back to liOrston. Her recol- 
 lection of every detail of the interview was, 
 however, violently distinct ; her brother was 
 always present before her ; his voice was un- 
 ceasingly repeating the monstrous words, 
 " the child you have picked up " ; she felt 
 herself imploring him on her knees ; and, 
 above all, her heart was filled to bursting 
 with a maddening sensation of humiliation. 
 The rest was a blank to her. 
 
 She asked mechanically for the child, took 
 it in her arms, looked sadly at it, and tried to 
 think. But thought would not come to her ; 
 there was no room for it in her head ; its
 
 CLAIRE BKAXDOX. 107 
 
 place was taken by the all-engrossing memory 
 of the scene she had gone through. 
 
 Claire played with her and babbled to her ; 
 but, finding that she got no answers and no 
 kisses, she did as children usually do under 
 such conditions — she slipped away. And 
 Harriet Brandon scarcely knew that she had 
 gone. 
 
 The hours passed, and brought no calm. 
 Night came and went. It was not until 
 the second day that the impression she had 
 received began to soften down. By degrees 
 the past became less exclusively absorbing, 
 and the future reappeared with its menaces. 
 But those menaces were not so aflPrio^hting 
 as they had been. She perceived, as soon 
 as she commenced again to look at them, 
 that they had lost a large proportion of the 
 gravity they had possessed before she went 
 to London, and that her brother's tone to 
 her had put an end to her doubts and hesi- 
 tations. She told herself, as soon as she 
 was able to recoo^nise the condition of her 
 ideas, that she had tried to come to an 
 arrangement and had failed, and she was 
 relieved and comforted to think so. It did
 
 108 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 not occur to her to consider whether the 
 attempt had been made in a wise or a prac- 
 tical form ; it was enough for her that it 
 had been made, and that her brother had 
 rejected her advances. It was now useless 
 to give way. It would be a mere sacrifice 
 of dignity to do so, without any correspond- 
 ing advantage whatever. The struggle must 
 go on to its end. She had done her best, 
 and could address to herself no more re- 
 proaches. Of course the future looked as 
 unsatisfactory as ever ; but that was a mere 
 fact, and, to her nature, facts had far less 
 interest than principles. The question of 
 principle was now decided. It was idle to 
 talk of giving way ; nothing could be gained 
 by it. 
 
 She wrote to Mr Holmes, told him what 
 had happened, and acquainted him with her 
 definitive decision to fight the case whatever 
 might be the consequences. He came down 
 to her a few days afterwards for a final con- 
 sultation, and then, in sadness but not in 
 too great fear, she awaited the result. 
 
 At last the day arrived. 
 
 George Brandon's counsel was, naturally,
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 109 
 
 perfectly aware that there was a nasty side 
 to his client's case, and that public feeling 
 might easily become excited against him. He 
 applied himself, consequently, from the open- 
 ing of his speech, to diminish, so far as he 
 could, the moral ugliness of the claim. With 
 that object, he began by speaking with deep 
 sympathy and esteem of General Brandon, 
 Colonel Brandon, and Miss Harriet Brandon. 
 He described the cruel pain his client felt in 
 being forced, by the highest considerations of 
 family duty, to bring such an action as this. 
 But really he had no option in the matter. 
 He loudly repudiated all thought of money 
 interest, and pointed out in touching language 
 that the mere property was of no import 
 whatever, compared with the honour of a 
 name which had been transmitted for five 
 centuries through an unbroken line. It was 
 to shield the untarnished repute of that ancient 
 lineage that he stood before them. The story 
 w^as most strange. Every detail of it was 
 amazing. Colonel Brandon had been abroad 
 for several years. He was supposed to be 
 travelling, in part for amusement, in part 
 for health. No one oave a thought to the
 
 110 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 idea that he had a wife. Suddenly it was 
 announced that he was dead, that he had 
 married secretly, and that he had left a child. 
 By a letter purporting to have been signed 
 by him on his deathbed, he announced his 
 marriage and confided his child to his sister. 
 Then came something almost more wonderful 
 still. The servant who had written that let- 
 ter, at the Colonel's dictation, disappeared — 
 disappeared, he must remark, under circum- 
 stances of the most extraordinary kind, cir- 
 cumstances which opened the door to grave 
 suspicions that it was the interest of somebody 
 to get rid of him — and the papers which were 
 said to have been intrusted to him, in order 
 to supply proof of the marriage, disappeared 
 with him. The result was, that no evidence 
 of the supposed marriage could be produced. 
 He was constrained to ask whether there had 
 been any marriage at all '? He was con- 
 strained to ask whether those papers had 
 ever existed 1 Those were the questions he 
 submitted to the jury. To say the very least, 
 those questions were open to most serious 
 doubts. It was h Is duty, his most painful 
 duty — yet, painful as it was, he must discharge
 
 CLATKE BRANDOX. Ill 
 
 it — to remind tlie jury that frequent cases 
 had been known, in which fond fathers had 
 put forward illegitimate children as having 
 been born in wedlock ; and, without asserting 
 — of course, he did not permit himself to 
 assert, for all was uncertainty in the case — 
 that Colonel Brandon had been actuated by 
 that motive, he was obliged to point, though 
 with infinite regret, to the possibility that 
 such an intention might have existed. He 
 was forced to add that, as Colonel Brandon 
 had avowedly deceived his family with 
 reference to the existence of his pretended 
 marriage, so, also, might he have deceived 
 them about the birthrights of this child. 
 Under conditions of so exceptional a nature, 
 was it not an imperious obligation for his 
 client, as the present male head of the family, 
 to protect himself from the possible reproach 
 of having permitted the ancestral estates to 
 fall into unjustified hands ? Hateful as it 
 was to him to seem to dispute his brother's 
 tale — the jury would, he knew, sympathise 
 earnestly with his distress — he felt, in his 
 heart, that he had no alternative, in order to 
 escape responsibility, but to bring the case
 
 112 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 before their enlightened judgment. And, in 
 addition to the legal bearings of the matter, 
 its moral aspects also obliged his client to take 
 these proceedings. General Brandon himself 
 — though he saw no reason, during the few 
 hours he remained alive after first hearing of 
 the existence of the child, to doubt the legiti- 
 macy of that child — had decided at once that, 
 even if she were legitimate, she ought not to 
 inherit the Hurley property. He therefore 
 instructed his solicitors to prepare a second 
 will leaving the estate to his client ; but he 
 died before that second will could be executed. 
 In presence of this intention, his client felt 
 himself to be, morally, the designated heir of 
 General Brandon, just as, legally, he believed 
 himself to be his heir-at-law. This fact 
 supplied an additional motive for this action. 
 Finally, his client had instructed him to ex- 
 press his highest admiration of the conduct 
 of Miss Harriet Brandon, who, with noble de- 
 votedness, had thought of nothing but what 
 she conceived to be her duty as a tender 
 sister, and who believed in the marriage of 
 her brother simply because she loved him. 
 Nothing could be more exemplary or more
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 113 
 
 deserving of praise. But Miss Brandon's 
 conduct, perfect as it was, proved nothing. 
 The facts remained unchanged by it. He 
 repeated, there was no proof that Colonel 
 Brandon had been married. The Colonel's 
 own tardy declaration to that effect was 
 unsupported, notwithstanding the efforts Miss 
 Brandon had so energetically made to trace 
 the marriage, by the slightest testimony of 
 any sort. He therefore claimed a verdict 
 for his client, because no other verdict was 
 possible. 
 
 When it was the turn of Miss Brandon's 
 counsel to speak, he said : " The marriage of 
 Colonel Brandon is proved by his own letter to 
 his sister. It cannot, thus far, be established 
 otherwise. We admit at once that the other 
 evidence we have obtained is only circumstan- 
 tial. But our contention is that, under all 
 the circumstances, the letter is sufficient, and 
 merits to be taken as sufficient. Our contention 
 is, that there is in this case something more 
 than mere usual testimony — something other 
 than mere fact — somethins; hio-her even than 
 the law itself. Our contention is, that the 
 honour of an ancient name — of which my 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 learned friend, pretending to be unaware that 
 lie is himself attacking it, has ventured to 
 talk as if it belonged to him — is on our side 
 only, and that it is for us alone to defend that 
 honour. Our contention is, that the truth, the 
 honesty, the fair fame of Charles Brandon, are 
 assailed here by his own brother. Our con- 
 tention is, that we stand here to represent and 
 to protect the noblest, the purest, the most 
 touching of all causes — that we are here to 
 vindicate the memory of a dead man, and 
 to obtain from you the declaration that that 
 dead man's name descends untainted to his 
 daughter. For motives which the jury will 
 appreciate — all I will say is, they are not those 
 pure and elevated motives which it has pleased 
 my learned friend to enumerate — the plaintiff 
 comes here to tell you that his brother signed 
 a lie when he was dying. I take it for 
 granted that he thinks nothing of the kind, 
 and that he is quite as convinced as we are 
 that his brother's deathbed letter states the 
 truth. But even if he really thought that 
 letter false, what would be the value of his 
 opinion ? It would stand alone. General 
 Brandon did not doubt the absolute truthful-
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 115 
 
 ness of that letter. Miss Harriet Brandon 
 will tell you presently that she is convinced 
 of its veracity. Charles Brandon was a gallant 
 soldier. There was no braver or more chival- 
 rous leader of men. While he lived, no tono-ue 
 would have ever dared to say he lied. It has 
 been reserved for his own brother, now that 
 he is dead, to prefer, before the world, that 
 loathsome charge against him. This being the 
 situation of the case, I think the jury will 
 ao^ree with me that there is in it something 
 more than a legal question. When Charles 
 Brandon saw that his end was cominsf, he 
 took every means within his power to place 
 his marriage beyond doubt. He saw the 
 grave error he had committed in not confess- 
 ing it before. He wrote to his uncle with the 
 details ; he sent him the certificates ; he con- 
 fided the letter to a faithful servant, and, by 
 a lamentable fatality, that servant was assas- 
 sinated, and that letter lost. Because that 
 servant is dead, it is argued that the whole 
 story is a falsehood. But the other letter — 
 the one I lay before you — tells the tale in 
 simple, mournful words ; and though I can 
 bring forward little in support of it, I claim
 
 116 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 that it alone suffices. Furthermore, I shall 
 show that Colonel Brandon came to England, 
 and procured, in person, the documents which 
 the French law requires to be deposited at the 
 Mairie by all persons who intend to marry in 
 France. The witnesses I shall call will prove 
 all this. I venture to assert that the evidence 
 I shall produce will, though technically incom- 
 plete, leave no room for doubt as to the reality 
 of the marriage. But, as I observed at the 
 commencement of my statement, I do not 
 pretend to stand on purely legal grounds. I 
 invoke in favour of a father and a child, one 
 of whom has left us for ever, while the other 
 has as yet no power of self-defence, the support 
 which we owe to the helpless, the aid which is 
 due to the absent. I appeal to the hearts of 
 those who hear me, and I entreat them not 
 to look at this singular case from the nar- 
 row standpoint of mathematical demonstra- 
 tion, but to view it with the broad and im- 
 partial appreciation which we derive from 
 experience of life and character, to judge 
 it in all its varied elements, and not as 
 a mere ordinary application of the habitual 
 rules of evidence. I count upon a verdict
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 117 
 
 in favour of Charles Brandon and his dauo-h- 
 
 o 
 
 ter, because no other verdict would be com- 
 patible with right feeling, with moral justice, 
 or with honour." 
 
 Then the nurse, Mr Gray, and the detective 
 told their stories, aod gave their explanations, 
 and after them ^liss Brandon entered the wit- 
 ness-box. 
 
 Her counsel said to her — '*' Now tell us, 
 if you please, your opinion on the case." 
 
 Harriet Brandon raised her voice almost 
 to a shout, and answered with a dio-nitv and 
 a solemnity which produced a profound im- 
 pression — " Before God, my conviction is, that 
 my brother Charles signed that letter. Be- 
 fore God, my conviction is, that my brother 
 Charles never told a lie. Before God, my 
 conviction is, that the letter states the truth ; 
 that my brother, Charles Brandon, was mar- 
 ried in France ; that Claire Brandon is his 
 lawful daughter, born in wedlock, and that 
 she is his heir-at-law, and therefore heir to 
 the estate of General Brandon, my uncle." 
 
 The effect of this declaration was immense. 
 A thrill ran through the court. There was an 
 instinctive movement of applause.
 
 118 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 The summing-up was divided, virtually, into 
 two parts. In the first, the judge pointed out 
 that evidence of the nature usually required 
 was entirely absent. In the second, he spoke 
 with a sympathy and a warmth of Harriet 
 Brandon and the child which left no room for 
 doubt that, if his reason as a lawyer obliged 
 him to take up one position, his feelings as 
 a man led him to adopt another. He left the 
 case to the appreciation of the jury. 
 
 The jury remained in consultation for five 
 hours, and the excitement in court, while 
 waiting for the end, was intensely keen. When, 
 at last, the door opened, the silence became 
 breathless. The foreman said, with a marked 
 appearance of constraint and regret — " We 
 find that no legal proof has been laid before us 
 of the marriage of Colonel Charles Brandon." 
 
 In giving judgment for the plaintiff, the 
 judge observed that he had not seen a more 
 painful family case. 
 
 The next day Harriet Brandon returned to 
 Lorston. She went straight from the station 
 to Mr Cumber, and said to him, speaking with 
 effort and fatigue, and in detached phrases, " I
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 119 
 
 wish, first of all, to thank you. You have 
 done your best for me, under difficult circum- 
 stances. I shall not forget it. 
 
 '' I quit the cottage at once. I cannot 
 remain in it as tenant of the new owner of 
 Hurley. 
 
 " I shall continue to seek for evidence of 
 the marriage. 
 
 " Of course I shall keep you informed of 
 my movements and of all I do. 
 
 " Now that you are free to act for me again, 
 I shall be much obliged if you will prepare a 
 will for me to sign, leaving everything I possess 
 to Claire. 
 
 *' She will bear the name of Brandon. I 
 give it to her." 
 
 On reaching home she took the child, looked 
 at her for some moments fixedly, and then 
 said in a low voice, " Darling ! My child ! " 
 
 Those were all the words she spoke, but 
 they meant — " I give you my life." 
 
 And then she went to her room, sat down, 
 and thought. 
 
 She remained alone for several hours. Her 
 head was calm and clear. She had a complete 
 perception of the terrible realities of the
 
 120 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 position, hut she felt no despair ; on the con- 
 trary, she retained her resolution, and looked 
 to the future with some remains of hope. The 
 mission she had to discharge had acquired the 
 character of a religion. She concentrated on 
 it all her force of faith, of will, of duty. The 
 trials she had borne, the responsibility she had 
 faced, the intense application of her whole eager 
 self to the work before her, had softened her 
 most singularly. Her tendency to violence 
 had decreased ; she no longer felt the tempta- 
 tion to explode ; a certain faculty of self-com- 
 mand had grown up within her. Both her 
 power and her need of love had sprung from 
 nothing to immensity. 
 
 In one direction, however, she had not pro- 
 gressed ; she remained unreasoning and un- 
 reasonable. In her, as in so many women — 
 both good and bad — the deductive faculty was 
 absent. Of course she did not know it ; she 
 imagined indeed, on the contrary, that she was 
 particularly argumentative, and would have 
 been astonished and offended if she had been 
 informed that, as a rule, she was inaccessible 
 to reason, and acted habitually on mere im- 
 pulse ; that her motives were nearly always
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 121 
 
 instinctive and independent of calculation. 
 Even when she thought — and she was begin- 
 ning to think a good deal — her judgments 
 were emotional, not logical. Fortunately her 
 impulses were good and generous, and not 
 often of a nature to lead her wrons^. 
 
 It was under the influence of these various 
 sensations and intuitions that she asked her- 
 self what she should do. It was easy to say 
 that she would leave the cottage, but it was 
 very difficult to choose another home. The 
 habits of a life seem simple and natural 
 enough so long as they run on smoothly. It 
 often happens, even, that we scarcely recog- 
 nise their existence until the time comes to 
 break with them. But then, in their accumu- 
 lated possession of us, they stand out before 
 us as cherished tyrants, from whose ruthless 
 but delightful domination we hate to be set 
 free. 
 
 Harriet Brandon fancied, in her oro^anised 
 old-maidism, that she would suffer a good deal 
 from a transformation of her existence. And 
 yet she could not stop at Hurley. 
 
 But reflection about her own wants and 
 ways occupied her only for a few moments.
 
 122 CLAIRE BHANDON. 
 
 Her real preoccupation was to select a resting- 
 place that would fit in with the new exigencies 
 which appeared to her to result from the 
 position of Claire. The instant the verdict 
 was pronounced, a resolution had formed itself 
 in Harriet Brandon's head ; that resolution was 
 — Never, never shall Claire know this. She 
 did not stop to ask herself whether such a 
 resolution was either w^ise or realisable ; she 
 gave no thought to the inconveniences and 
 even the dangers which might result from it 
 later on ; it sufficed to her that it w^as in 
 harmony with the present condition of her 
 affections and her impulses. She acted, as she 
 always acted, for the present, and according to 
 the lights of the present. So, as Claire was to 
 know nothing, she must be kept away from 
 contact with all persons who could tell her 
 anything. Now Harriet Brandon had seen 
 the newspapers that morning ; she had read 
 in them the reports of the trial and the articles 
 upon it, all full of sympathy for herself; she 
 knew, therefore, that everybody would be 
 talking of it, and she thought, with a feeling 
 of shrinking horror, of the frightful possibility 
 that the child might learn her own history.
 
 CLAIRE BEAK DON. 123 
 
 She had heard that children's memories are 
 retentive, that young imaginations receive 
 sometimes impressions which time does not 
 efface, and, in her fear, she determined that the 
 sole consideration in her choice of a future 
 home should be the certainty — so far as cer- 
 tainty could be assured by watchfulness — that 
 no stories should reach the ears of Claire, 
 either then or later on. A refuge must be 
 found where Claire would be in safety from 
 the indiscretions of tale-bearers, whether ac- 
 quaintances or servants. 
 
 But this limitation of motives did not facil- 
 itate the decision ; on the contrary, it ren- 
 dered it vastly more difficult than it seemed 
 at first. An abode might be found, perhaps, 
 by seeking, in which old habits could be sat- 
 isfied, old contacts retained, old prejudices 
 humoured. But what spot on earth was safe 
 from gossip 1 Even Harriet Brandon, with 
 all her undoubting ardour, could not blind 
 herself to the uselessness of hunting for so 
 imaginary a place. It was as impossible to 
 discover it as it was easy to wish for it. The 
 utmost that could be hoped for was to lessen 
 the probabilities of peril, to diminish the
 
 124 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 chances of risk ; neither peril nor risk could 
 be suppressed altogether. 
 
 When, after long meditation, this certainty 
 had forced itself on her unwilling mind — when 
 she had become convinced that she must con- 
 tent herself with a partial solution of the diffi- 
 culty, because a complete settlement of it was 
 unattainable — there flashed into her a sudden 
 impulse : she rose from the low chair in which 
 she had been sitting, made two steps for- 
 ward, raised her arms, looked straight and 
 hard before her, and said aloud, '' We will 
 go abroad." 
 
 As she always acted instantaneously on her 
 decisions, she rang the bell, ordered that Berthe 
 should be sent up, and said to her, " We go to 
 France in a few days. Get ready. Tell no 
 one. We three go alone." 
 
 The next morning she went again to Mr 
 Cumber, communicated her decision to him, 
 signed her will, and gave him power to settle 
 all business on her behalf. 
 
 A week later she was in Paris. She stopped 
 there for two days to see a lawyer, and to en- 
 gage a French detective to pursue the traces of 
 the marriage. And then they went to Biarritz.
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTEE y. 
 
 Speing was ending, summer was approach- 
 ing ; the season at Biarritz (which, in those 
 days, was almost limited to August and Sep- 
 tember) had not begun — the place was empty. 
 Miss Brandon, Claire, and Berthe passed the 
 days before the glorious sea. The child was 
 in strong health, and full of joy. Harriet 
 Brandon was calm. The emotion throuorh 
 which she had just passed had been so exces- 
 sive that it began immediately to produce, by 
 reaction, its own cure. At first the change 
 was limited simply to sensations. Keither 
 convictions nor will were afi'ected by it. 
 She had a mission, and was o-oino- to discharore 
 it. She remained at Biarritz as resolute as she 
 had been at Hurley, but she suffered infinitely 
 less. There were indeed, almost from the day 
 of her arrival, moments when she did not
 
 126 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 suffer at all. The bitter earnestness of her 
 intentions remained unweakened (at least she 
 thought so), but she consented to be quieter, 
 and to rest. She was forced to recognise that, 
 for her own sake as well as for Claire's, she 
 had acted wisely in quitting England, in 
 breaking with the past, and in seeking new 
 surroundings. The strain to which she had 
 been subjected had been too much for her. 
 She had borne it valiantly, as became her na- 
 ture ; while it lasted she had not permitted 
 it to affect her ; but, now that it was over, she 
 felt how much it had exhausted her. She 
 needed repose and change, and she found both 
 at Biarritz. The life there, with its new condi- 
 tions, its strangenesses and its idlenesses, was, 
 in her wayworn condition, particularly sooth- 
 ing. To her surprise she found scarcely any 
 pain in the rupture of her habits. And, above 
 all, she no longer had either duties or occupa- 
 tions which took her away from Claire ; they 
 spent the days together in unceasing talk, 
 and play, and love ; and the heart of Harriet 
 Brandon grew filled with sweet rejoicing and 
 unwonted gentleness. Her concentration in 
 the child became so absorbing that at mo-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 127 
 
 ments she almost thanked fate for having 
 driven them together into the solitude of exile. 
 
 They stopped at Biarritz, in tenderness and 
 peace, until July, and then, to avoid the com- 
 ing crowd, they went to Arcachon. 
 
 There, amidst the dreariness of the sand- 
 hills and the pine - trees, Harriet Brandon 
 began to feel a little weary of life in a hotel, 
 and to wish for an established home of some 
 sort. It was, of course, most satisfactory from 
 her main point of view, to possess the freedom 
 of a wanderer, and to use it to avoid chatterers. 
 But wandering provided, after all, no real fulfil- 
 ment of the object she had set before herself at 
 Hurley. It was good enough as a temporary 
 expedient ; it was suflScient for a time ; but it 
 was inadmissible as a system. A trial of it 
 during a few months had sufiiced to bring its 
 unsatisfactoriness into evidence, and to the 
 warlike heart of Harriet Brandon it had the 
 special demerit of seeming to be a flight and 
 a cowardice. There were even moments of 
 reaction when, in her combativeness, she re- 
 gretted she had left England, and when she 
 was half tempted to return there. Those 
 moments were, however, rare, and they be-
 
 128 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 came more and more rare as time passed on. 
 Her personal feeling was, that she had done 
 right (she had a strong tendency to imagine 
 she had done right), and that feeling led her 
 to consider the policy of fixing themselves 
 altogether abroad, at all events for some years. 
 Besides, the day would soon come when the 
 education of Claire would have to be com- 
 menced ; when regular habits, the habits that 
 are not obtainable at hotels, would have to be 
 formed and followed, when facilities and con- 
 veniences of teaching would be needed. For 
 all these reasons a home would have to be 
 found somewhere, and soon. Why wait ? 
 Why not enjoy at once the advantages of a 
 home ; why not shelter in it the new happi- 
 ness that seemed to be dawning on them ? 
 
 But where was the home to be ? In spite 
 of the whisperings of old habits it could not 
 be in England, because of the danger there 
 of betrayal of the secret she had determined 
 to hide from Claire. But that was all Har- 
 riet Brandon knew. The rest was void. Out- 
 side England she had no acquaintances ; she 
 had never travelled ; she knew nothing of the 
 Continent ; she had no sympathies to satisfy, no
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDO^\ 129 
 
 preferences, and no inducements. All Europe 
 was at her disposal, but no spot she had ever 
 heard of either attracted her or repelled her ; 
 all places were the same to her, provided only 
 she could keep out rumour. 
 
 The problem before her — simple as it may 
 look at first sight — is always difficult to work 
 out, even under the best conditions ; but in 
 Harriet Brandon's position it was unsolvable, 
 for not only had she no experience of her own, 
 but she had no one to pilot her, and could 
 apply to no one for an opinion. She could 
 only read descriptions in guide - books, and 
 wonder whether they were true. She stared 
 at the question until it half stupefied her, and 
 finally, after weeks of hesitation, allowed her- 
 self, languidly, to be persuaded by the hotel- 
 keeper to take a house where she was. This 
 time there was no impulse in the decision. 
 Indeed it w^as not a decision at all ; it was 
 simply an acquiescence ; she stopped at Ar- 
 cachon for the most negative of all reasons — 
 because she could not make up her mind to 
 go anywhere else. Was it possible that her 
 character was beginning to change ? 
 
 The house was in the pine woods. It was 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 large and fairly furnished, but it was lonely and 
 melancholy. A patch of sand around it was 
 called a garden, in which some flowers tried to 
 grow. And yet, despite the sadness, life passed 
 kindly there. The state of mind into which 
 Harriet Brandon had drifted at Biarritz be- 
 came strengthened and confirmed. Beginning 
 as a temporary and even accidental condition, 
 it glided slowly into permanence from contin- 
 ued action of the same causes. Solitude and 
 contented love are powerful producers of new 
 habits, and new habits and new thoughts gained 
 strength fast in the villa at Arcachon. Har- 
 riet Brandon perceived with astonishment, and 
 sometimes even with vexation, that the ener- 
 getic resolutions she had formed after the trial 
 — resolutions which, at that time, had seemed 
 to her so unquenchable — were becoming grad- 
 ually blunted. As she had no provocations to 
 violence, and as her new surroundings were 
 soothing and contenting, her temper began to 
 soften down. The memory of Hurley brought 
 nothing but pain ; so it was driven off, aud by 
 deofrees it weakened. Harriet Brandon had 
 always lived in the present, and at Arcachon 
 the present, in its infinite sweetness, became to
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 131 
 
 her more absorbing than ever. She hated the 
 past ; she feared the future ; the passing day 
 was all she cared to think of. But, naturally, 
 she had recoils. At certain moments she was 
 angry with herself for seeming to become luke- 
 warm ; she fancied sometimes that she was 
 failing in her mission, which was to prove the 
 marriage and loathe her brother G-eorge. Yet, 
 on the whole, she let herself be human ; she 
 yielded to the quelling influence of time and 
 to the current of her new life, and became 
 appeased. 
 
 They led an indolent existence. They 
 strolled about in the forest. They drove 
 sometimes to the sea, especially in storm 
 time, and gazed at the great waves breaking, 
 surging, roaring up the dunes. After a few 
 months, Miss Brandon made three or four 
 acquaintances amongst the French people 
 around her. Her fear of strangers was 
 diminishing. And after all, it was a little 
 mournful to know no one. Decidedly her 
 character was changinor. 
 
 And Claire played, grew, and ceased to 
 be a baby. 
 
 Meanwhile the settlement of the family
 
 132 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 affairs had been completed by Mr Cumber, 
 and he had transferred to Miss Brandon's 
 bankers her share of the personal property 
 left not only by General Brandon, but by 
 Colonel Brandon too. The fortune of the 
 latter (who had made no will) had also to 
 be divided, in consequence of the verdict 
 which disinherited Claire, between George 
 Brandon and his sister. The sums were 
 large. In addition to the £20,000 specially 
 bequeathed to her by her uncle, she came 
 in for half of £70,000 he left in securities, 
 and for half of the £40,000 which had be- 
 longed to the Colonel. Consequently, includ- 
 ing the £1200 a -year she had previously 
 possessed, she found herself with an income 
 of above £4500. As the utmost she could 
 spend, with her then mode of life, did not 
 exceed £1500, she was, for the moment, need- 
 lessly rich. But there was Claire and the 
 future. 
 
 The new French detective achieved no more 
 success than his English predecessor. He ad- 
 vertised and searched, but he discovered noth- 
 ing. Yet, for a long time. Miss Brandon would 
 not consent to give up the pursuit. It was
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 133 
 
 not until twelve mouths had been employed 
 in useless inquiries, accompanied by useless 
 expenditure, that she consented, on the reiter- 
 ated advice of both her Paris lawyer and Mr 
 Cumber, to suspend the investigation. 
 
 And then the years passed on ; years of 
 tender quiet and contentment for Harriet Bran- 
 don ; years of health and childish joys for Claire. 
 
 Her education had commenced — the educa- 
 tion that, in the first fond dreamings of her 
 aunt, was to make of her a product hitherto 
 unknown. It began, however, as in other 
 less ambitious cases, with an alphabet and a 
 Noah's ark. 
 
 One day, w^hen Claire w^as eight, a reason 
 came for leaving Arcachon. A Madame 
 Hoche, w^ho lived in the nearest house, and 
 who had slowly become a real and earnest 
 friend, ran in to say excitedly that her son, 
 who had been French Consul at Pernambuco, 
 w^as transferred to Venice, and that she was 
 going there to him. Thereon, for the first 
 time for years, Harriet Brandon had an im- 
 pulse — she would go to Venice too. She had 
 at last a motive for choosing one place rather 
 than another, and she leaped upon it. She
 
 134 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 told herself that Arcachon without her friend 
 Madame Hoche, would cease to be Arcachon, 
 and that Venice with Madame Hoche, would 
 be more than Arcachon had ever been. So 
 she transferred her home from the Atlantic to 
 the Adriatic. 
 
 It was at Venice that Claire budded from 
 a child into a girl. She breathed sunlit air 
 when her first glimpses into life opened out 
 before her. Some of the faults and some of 
 the qualities of the South grafted themselves 
 on to her nature. Her inborn character was 
 influenced by the thoughts, the ways, the 
 words of the race amongst which she had been 
 brought. At Venice and its neighbourhood, 
 where she remained for seven years, the basis 
 of her education w^as filled in. It was at 
 Venice that she made her first communion, 
 an act that remains in the memory of every 
 Catholic. It was at Venice that she acquired 
 the consciousness of what music is and can be, 
 the dawning conception of the uses of art, in 
 daily life. She was pushed exceptionally on- 
 wards by the nature of her surroundings ; 
 at an age when most other girls are still 
 struggling with beginnings, she was already
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 135 
 
 perceiving results. And yet she was not 
 a satisfactory pupil, in the ordinary meaning 
 of the phrase ; she was not the wonder her 
 aunt had hoped she would be ; she was not 
 laborious; she could not apply herself to 
 regular study ; she detested geography^ and 
 was incapable in arithmetic. But her memory 
 was so sure, her perceptivity so rapid, her 
 opportunities so varied and so extended, that 
 she could not help acquiring many sorts of 
 knowledge. Her aunt had tried to direct her, 
 but, of course, had failed, had lost control over 
 her, and thouoht of nothino- but to give her 
 pleasure, to make her brilliant, and to be 
 proud of her. She was not at all " brought 
 up " ; no girl could be less so ; she blossomed. 
 
 Miss Brandon had been persuaded by 
 Madame Hoche, who was a woman with ideas, 
 that " education by contact," in the rare cases 
 w^here it is materially applicable, is infinitely 
 more easy and infinitely more productive than 
 education by books. Mere " instruction " 
 appeared to her to be a decidedly inferior 
 object to pursue ; anybody could learn printed 
 facts ; her Claire was to rise higher ; she did 
 not know exactly how, but Madame Hoche
 
 136 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 said she would, and it was pleasant to believe 
 her. And all this fitted in, too, with the 
 vague fancy of ''teaching by absorption" 
 which Harriet Brandon, in her first well- 
 remembered dream of the training she would 
 give Claire, had allowed herself to indulge. 
 In all ordinary cases these notions would 
 have been fantastic, and even dangerous ; they 
 would have upset the balance of the girls on 
 whom they were essayed, and have produced 
 pure damage. But Claire was a special ex- 
 ample. By the exciting atmosphere she 
 breathed, by the almost unlimited facilities 
 that were at her disposal, by the exceptional 
 advantages of her position and mode of life, 
 she was placed in altogether personal condi- 
 tions of development. At Venice she found 
 herself in a forcing-house, with every variety 
 of cultivation going on around her. Her 
 aunt, after some instinctive resistance, had 
 taken to Venetian ways and had consented to 
 make acquaintances. She had got to like the 
 mixture of types, of manners, of nationalities, 
 of subjects, of impressions, which she found in 
 her path. She had become less British and 
 more European ; her prejudices had diminished.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 137 
 
 her sympathies had expanded ; she had cast 
 oflf the skin of Harriet Brandon of Hurley. 
 Time, new habits, the flattering courtesy and 
 attention of which she was the object in 
 consequence of her fortune (which she was 
 beginning to spend largely), had gradually 
 warmed her heart to foreis^n life. Her drawino^- 
 room was one of the centres of Venice, and 
 Claire, since she was thirteen, had her place in 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 The fertilising;', stimulatino; action of cos- 
 mopolitanism was therefore in full work on 
 Claire. She thought she was in the element 
 she was made for. She had always detested 
 the drudgery of the schoolroom, and, even as 
 a child, had felt keen interest in things and 
 people ; she cared nothing for other girls, but 
 liked to talk to men and women, and men and 
 women liked to talk to her. Happily, she had 
 her aunt's honest, loyal, truthful nature, and it 
 saved her from being spoilt. Strong, fearless, 
 generous, self-willed, and self-reliant, yet full 
 of grace and feminineness, hot-tempered but 
 profoundly affectionate and devoted, possess- 
 ing the solidity of the North and the vivacity 
 of the South, Claire Brandon was a girl apart.
 
 138 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Of book-learning she had comparatively little, 
 though she did not dislike reading ; but of life- 
 learning she was piling up a stock that rarely 
 comes in the way of children. For languages 
 she had a singular facility ; and though she 
 considered them to be mere tools, and did not 
 count them as knowledge, she never lost an 
 opportunity of laying hands on them. She 
 had always been surrounded by foreign gover- 
 nesses and maids, and at ten years old had 
 spoken German, Italian, French, and English. 
 As time passed on she picked up, in the mixed 
 world around her, scraps of several other 
 tongues. She sang — as children sing — in all 
 of them,, and felt intuitively, while she was 
 still in short frocks, that song is the most 
 elevating of all the forms in which emotion 
 can be expressed. 
 
 Claire prospered in intelligence, in experi- 
 ence, in skill. 
 
 Suddenly, one morning, in the full glow of 
 all this brightness and contentment, a letter 
 reached her aunt from Mr Cumber, informing 
 her that Mr George Brandon had left England 
 for Italy, and was known to have the intention 
 of spending some time at Venice.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 139 
 
 The news flung Harriet Brandon back twelve 
 years. She had been floating on the current 
 of a sunny stream, amidst flowers and spark- 
 ling ripples. She had lost sight, more and 
 more, of the ugly past ; she found the present 
 pleasant ; she had ceased to dread the future ; 
 the fear that Claire might some day learn the 
 truth no longer pursued her ; she had wandered 
 into another world and had grown careless and 
 forgetful. The impressions which once had 
 been so intense and seemiugiy so inefiaceable, 
 had almost faded from her memory ; and 
 when, from time to time, they spoke again 
 within her, it was with an enfeebled echo that 
 barely reached her ears. She tried to forget 
 the existence of her brother. Why should she 
 wish to remember him now that everything 
 for herself and Claire had become so changed '? 
 To think of the past was to mutilate the 
 present. The wound was cicatrised ; it had 
 only left a scar. Yet, in one instant, it was 
 torn open again, even more torturing, from 
 the circumstances under which the blow was 
 delivered, than it had ever been before. That 
 letter destroyed the existence she had built up. 
 A crash of terrifying thunder rolled through
 
 140 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 her sunny sky. The old emotionality, which 
 had lain by unemployed, rushed up again. 
 Doubts, torments, terrors, unfelt for years, 
 dashed brutally into her head. The whole 
 frightful story resounded from afar. It seemed 
 to shriek at her. And yet the shock did not 
 crush her. She was herself once more after 
 the first awfal shudder. Impulse came leaping 
 to her rescue. She clenched her hands and 
 cried out, " We will leave Venice to-morrow ! " 
 And then she sent for Claire and told her so. 
 
 Claire stared at her with stupefaction. She 
 exclaimed — " Leave Venice ! Tatte — why ? 
 Leave Venice ! What has happened ? " 
 
 Harriet Brandon took Claire's two hands, 
 and, speaking slowly and with agitation, said, 
 " Darling, we leave Venice because . . . because 
 we must . . . because your uncle is coming, 
 and because ... we cannot meet him." 
 
 Claire looked steadily at her aunt. She had 
 often inquired about her parents. She knew 
 that they had died when she was very young. 
 She knew she had " a wicked uncle." She 
 had, in her early days, compared herself to 
 the children in the Tower, because they, too, 
 had a wicked uncle. She had wondered she
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 141 
 
 was not told more. But she had had, as yet, 
 no reason for giving serious thought to the 
 subject. It did not press. This time it 
 seemed to her that it did press. She asked, 
 " But why cannot we meet my uncle ? " 
 
 Harriet Brandon had not counted that her 
 anguish at the news of her brother's arrival 
 was to be followed instantly by a cruel explan- 
 ation with Claire. The double pressure was 
 too much for her. She lost her head under it 
 and answered, wildly, " Because he is a bad 
 man . . . because he is our enemy . . . because 
 . . . because ... I cannot tell you." 
 
 Claire looked very grave. It was evident 
 her thoughts were working deeply. She was 
 silent for some seconds, and then said, " Be- 
 cause he is our enemy ? Our enemy ? Why 
 is he our enemy "? Why should he be my 
 enemy when I have never seen him ? " And 
 then, after another silence, she added, in a 
 voice unlike her own, " Tatte, what are you 
 hidino; from me '? " 
 
 *' Darling, sweet darling, do not ask me," 
 sobbed Harriet Brandon, losing her head more 
 and more. 
 
 " Do not ask you ? Then there is some-
 
 142 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 thing to conceal. Have I no right to know ? 
 Or are you afraid to tell me ? " 
 
 Harriet Brandon wrung her hands in bitter 
 distress, and gazed about her, as if to seek for 
 help. But Claire was in no mood to wait. 
 She reiterated, in a short, sharp tone, and with 
 a look of determination that frightened her 
 aunt still more, '' Tatte, tell me. I must 
 know." 
 
 " I cannot tell you," faintly articulated Har- 
 riet Brandon, rising with difficulty from her 
 chair, and, in her blind terror, tottering, almost 
 unconsciously, to the door. 
 
 But Claire sprang before her, put out her 
 arms and held her, and cried, with flashing eyes 
 and whitened cheeks, " Tell me. I will know." 
 
 '^ Then sit down — sit down — and I will tell 
 you — indeed I will," sighed Harriet Brandon, 
 beaten and trembling. 
 
 They came back together to their chairs ; 
 Harriet Brandon took Claire's head upon her 
 shoulder, held her hands, and said, distorting 
 the truth somewhat in her crushing emotion, 
 for the first time in her life, but still struggling 
 instinctively, to tell no lie, " It was when you 
 were born, Claire. Yes, it was when you were
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 143 
 
 born — at least, soon after. Your father was 
 to have Hurley ... Of course . . . He was 
 the eldest . . . But the General altered his 
 will when he knew that your father had mar- 
 ried a French Catholic ... And you were 
 disinherited . . . And I quarrelled with George 
 because he got the property from you ; and 
 nothing can ever bring us together again. He 
 is our enemy . . . That is it, Claire." 
 
 '' Is that all ? " asked Claire, mistrustfully. 
 " Is that all ? It does not seem to me, Tatte, 
 that it is all." 
 
 *'A11?" replied her aunt, beginning, with 
 desperate eflfort, to win back some control over 
 herself. Is not that enouo^h ? Is it not enough 
 that you should have been robbed of what be- 
 longed to you ? It is not all, if you like, in one 
 sense. There is to be added that I quarrelled 
 with George because of this — but I have said 
 that already — and that I have never seen him 
 since, and that I will never see him again, and 
 that we must go away because of that." 
 
 " Oh," said Claire, with a long slow breath. 
 And she looked down and thought, with her 
 lips compressed and a strange expression in 
 her eyes.
 
 144 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 After a while she spoke again. She said, 
 with recovered gentleness, " Dear Tatte, you 
 will tell me all about it at some other time. I 
 fancy you are keeping something back. My 
 wish would be to face my uncle. I have no 
 fear of him. It breaks my heart to go away — 
 but we will go. Dear Tatte, I love you with 
 all my soul." And she threw her arms round 
 her aunt, covered her with kisses, broke away, 
 and ran out of the room. 
 
 Harriet Brandon sat, for some time, almost 
 insensible. The storm that had burst so sud- 
 denly into the midst of her sunshine had thrown 
 her down and devastated her. She felt vaguely 
 that she was much older. The effort she had 
 made to answer Claire had taken out of her 
 the little strength that had remained in her 
 after reading Mr Cumber's letter. Claire was 
 on the path of the secret ! The work of twelve 
 years appeared to be lost. What was to hap- 
 pen next 1 With returning consciousness came 
 growing terror. Life seemed to be no more 
 worth living. 
 
 An hour passed in torpid suffering. And 
 then the door opened quietly, and Claire came 
 in again. Her eyes were red ; her cheeks
 
 CLAIRE bra>;dox. 145 
 
 were pale ; but slie was calm, and smiled ten- 
 derly as she advanced. She sat down upon 
 lier aunt's knee, put her arms round her, and 
 whispered, '' I come to ask you to forgive me, 
 Tatte. It was wicked and ungrateful of me, 
 and I am ashamed and very sorry. I should 
 not have spoken as I did. You are my sweet 
 Tatte. You are my dear mother . . ." 
 
 It was the first time she had called her aunt 
 " Mother ! " 
 
 At the sound of that name, Harriet Bran- 
 don's heart stopped beating. She lifted up 
 her hands, placed them on Claire's shoulders, 
 looked eagerly into her eyes, and murmured, 
 " Mother ! Say it again, Claire. Say it 
 again." 
 
 And Claire, surprised, not knowiug all the 
 word meant at that moment to the afflicted 
 spirit of her aunt, repeated, amidst kisses, 
 " Mother ! mother ! forgive me." 
 
 Harriet Brandon lost her head as^ain — this 
 time with joy. 
 
 " Darling ! My glorious Claire ! " she said. 
 *' It was so sweet to hear. And yet you must 
 not say it. It does not belong to me. It 
 belongs to the dead. I try to take her place 
 
 VOL. L K
 
 146 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 to you, but I cannot take her name. Still, 
 darling, it was so infinitely sweet that I asked, 
 selfishly, to listen once again. That is all. 
 Now it is over. Keep it in your thoughts, 
 for her!' 
 
 " Then you do forgive me, Tatte ?" whispered 
 Claire, with a caress. '' I am so grieved to 
 have caused you pain." 
 
 ^' Forgive you ! My child, my light, my 
 life, my all ! Indeed I do forgive you. But 
 I have told you everything. I have, indeed. 
 It is because my brother George got Hurley 
 that we left England, and it is because he is 
 coming here that we must leave Venice. We 
 cannot meet him." 
 
 " I am ready," said Claire. " When do you 
 wish to start '? Shall we come back again, or 
 not ? What shall we do about saying good- 
 bye to people ? " 
 
 " My dear child, we will go as soon as pos- 
 sible — in a couple of days perhaps. As for 
 coming back again, we will see. Of course we 
 shall leave everything here. And we will say 
 good-bye to no one, excepting intimate friends. 
 We will tell them we are going away for a few 
 weeks, to get a change. It does not matter
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDON. 147 
 
 where. Shall we try Paris ? You ought to see 
 it. Send a note at once to Madame Hoche, 
 and beg her to come to us directly." 
 
 And then Harriet Brandon sat alone once 
 more and meditated, and, with "Mother" still 
 echoino: in her ears, beo;an to feel more calm. 
 By degrees she perceived that, as she had 
 decided to leave Venice while her brother 
 stayed there, his presence would not, after all, 
 afiect her. She was deeply vexed and angry 
 with herself for having, in her terror, betrayed 
 to Claire the existence of a secret ; but, even as 
 regarded that, she hoped, with her buoyant 
 nature, that no harm would come and that her 
 foolish admissions might be explained away. 
 And then the thought of Paris came to her 
 once more, and she fancied it would be wise to 
 go there, because the change would be so com- 
 plete. So, presently, she called again for 
 Claire, and said, " Now really, darling, I do 
 think we might go to Paris. Of course it is 
 a long way ; but, once there, it might amuse 
 you. And, I daresay, it would help for some 
 of your lessons. As I said just now, you 
 ought to see it. What do you think your- 
 self?"
 
 148 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 " Decide, dear Tatte," was the reply. '' You 
 know best. It will soon be too warm for 
 Eome, otherwise I might have asked you to 
 go that way rather. Let us try Paris, if you 
 like. Once out of my dear Venice, all places 
 will be the same to me." Then Claire went 
 away and pondered. 
 
 A week afterwards they were established at 
 the Hotel du Khin. 
 
 Notwithstanding her professed indifference, 
 Claire arrived in Paris with the curiosity which 
 everybody feels when coming there for the first 
 time. She had no sympathy for the North ; 
 the existence she had led, and the habits she 
 had formed, had aroused in her the impression 
 that her nature was fitted only to the South, 
 and that she could be content nowhere else. 
 Still, Paris excited her imagination, and, true 
 as was her love of sunlight and of sunlit life, 
 she was really glad to visit it. She hoped, 
 too, to find in it some distraction from the 
 suspicions and the preoccupations which had 
 been aroused in her by the scene with her 
 aunt at Venice. She felt convinced that some- 
 thing was being hidden from her, though she
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 149 
 
 could not imagine what. Her aunt's explan- 
 ations seemed natural enough in themselves ; 
 but the story had been told in such a fashion, 
 with such agitation, such reticence, such 
 hesitation, that less quick eyes than hers 
 would have perceived in it grounds for mis- 
 trust. Still, Claire loved her aunt so ten- 
 derly, and respected her so deeply, that it 
 seemed to her a wickedness to doubt or to 
 ask questions. So, as doubt persisted in pur- 
 suing her, in spite of her struggle against it, 
 she was pleased to change surroundings for a 
 while, in order to renew her thoughts and to 
 escape from the influence of local impressions. 
 As for Harriet Brandon, the transfer to Paris 
 did not at first brins^ her the alleviation of 
 anxiety for which she hoped. She continued, 
 notwithstanding the change, to be preoccupied 
 about the possible consequences between Claire 
 and herself of the foolish words she had allowed 
 to escape from her lips. The disposition to 
 make light of troubles had been developed in 
 her by the life she had been leading ; but still, 
 the efi'ects of her sudden violent awakening 
 to the risks of the situation remained in her 
 heart, and she carried about with her a certain
 
 150 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 constant apprehension, and a deep irritation 
 against herself. She felt more than all, per- 
 haps, that she alone was to blame for any con- 
 sequences that might ensue. 
 
 Most fortunately for them both they met, 
 almost immediately after their arrival in Paris, 
 an old French gentleman whom they had 
 known intimately at Venice. He was a Count 
 de Morvan, a retired diplomatist, who had seen 
 many things, who had acquired much common- 
 sense and wide experience, who talked easily 
 and brightly, and who had a particular sym- 
 pathy and admiration for Claire. He had been 
 a good deal with her, had probed a long way 
 into her, and had formed the opinion that, if 
 she were well handled, she would become a 
 remarkable person. He had left her with the 
 idea that he would come across her path no 
 more, and whenever he had thought of her 
 since, had regretted that fate had not per- 
 mitted him to follow her march in life. So 
 when, to his astonishment, he stumbled on her 
 in the Eue de la Paix, his satisfaction was 
 great, especially when he learnt she was in 
 Paris for a time. He came at once to see 
 them, offered to be their guide, and told them
 
 CLAIRE BRA^'DOX. 151 
 
 where to go and what to look at. To Claire's 
 complaint that she had the chilly sensation of 
 having strayed from noonday into gloom, he 
 replied by arguing that, on the contrary, she 
 had reached an atmosphere of a curiously in- 
 vigorating nature, in which, if she liked, she 
 could inhale new breaths, and from which she 
 could extract forces that, so far, had been un- 
 used by her. He declared that Paris, for those 
 who know how to treat it, is the most teachino: 
 city in the world, the place where ideas are the 
 most varied, where information is the most at- 
 tainable, where examples are the most abun- 
 dant, where resources are the most plenteous. 
 He pressed Claire to recognise that the disap- 
 pearance of the cosmopolitan brightnesses, and 
 of the diversified society she had left behind 
 her, would be more than compensated, if she 
 stopped in Paris, by the multiformity and the 
 facility of the new opportunities she would 
 enjoy. These opportunities would be of a dif- 
 ferent character from her previous experiences, 
 but they would offer, he believed, a higher 
 utility to her. Still, knowing, as he well did, 
 Claire's dislike of study and her shrinking from 
 application, he limited his enumeration of the
 
 152 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 means at her disposal to their most superficial 
 elements; he said nothing of any object that 
 needed work, and spoke of concerts, lectures, 
 galleries, and — above all — of talk, as if they 
 represented the whole educating power of 
 Paris. 
 
 His earnestness amused Claire, and, after a 
 few days, began to influence her. She let herself 
 be encouraged to suppose that possibly, after 
 all, the cold North might give her some new 
 conceptions, and, as her curiosity was insa- 
 tiable, she decided to make the attempt. She 
 promised M. de Morvan that she would not 
 ask her aunt to go elsewhere at once, but that 
 she would see honestly what she could extract 
 from the air of Paris. She added, however, 
 that she would never be satisfied to stop there 
 unless they could make friends ; for, both to 
 her aunt and to herself, with their Venetian 
 habits, the sentiment of isolation would destroy 
 all local merits, however great. 
 
 M. de Morvan listened with keen interest. 
 He had always had an artist's longing to help 
 to build up Claire, and what he had seen in 
 her since they had met again in Paris had 
 given him the certainty that her character, her
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 153 
 
 aptitudes, and her wonderful development for 
 her years, promised to produce a woman of 
 rare value. He had exhausted pleasure, he 
 had worn out ambitions, and his emotions were 
 growing languid ; but he had preserved much 
 natural goodness. A gentle intellectual dilet- 
 tanteism, and a particular need of contact with 
 the more delicate forms of feminine endowment 
 and charm, had replaced in him the active sen- 
 sations of the past. To such a nature there 
 was something very tempting in the notion 
 of contributing to the formation of a tem- 
 perament like Claire's. He knew that her 
 personality was intense, that her ardour of 
 vitality and her need of productivity were 
 singularly rare. He knew that her long resi- 
 dence in Venice had fertilised her nature, and 
 had prepared it to profit abundantly by oppor- 
 tunities. And, above all, he knew that she 
 had reached an age and a condition of mind in 
 which she required the most careful guidance, 
 and that the outcome of her tendencies and 
 capacities as a woman would depend mainly, 
 if not indeed entirely, on the quality of that 
 guidance. So far, her intelligence had ridden 
 on ahead, interrogatively and somewhat ag-
 
 154 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 gressively, like outpost scouts in war time, 
 peering into the visible, watching for the in- 
 visible ; seeking behind the hills, the trees, the 
 house-tops, for sight of the unknown ; desul- 
 tory, almost disorderly, in its freedom. But 
 now the time had come to try to regulate this 
 somewhat tumultuous enthusiasm. In the 
 opinion of M. de Morvan a rare character 
 might be made or marred by the influence of 
 the next few years on Claire. And, not the 
 least, he knew that Harriet Brandon had 
 neither the head nor the hand required for so 
 intricate a task. So, having confidence in his 
 own skill and nothing to do, he determined, 
 after passing an evening in reflection, that he 
 would endeavour to help a little himself.
 
 155 
 
 CHAPTEK Yl. 
 
 The next moruino- M. de Morvau decided 
 that he needed an ally in the enterprise he 
 proposed to undertake. He felt, with his 
 peculiar appreciation of the uses and the 
 po^Yers of women, that he would proceed more 
 safely and more easily if he had a woman to 
 aid him. So, having a sister, he went to 
 breakfast with her. 
 
 The Marquise d'Heristal was, in many 
 ways, a remarkable woman. Her experience 
 was w^ide, her knowledge of human nature 
 was exceptional, her common - sense was 
 sturdy, her selfishness was limitless. She 
 was three years younger than her brother; 
 she had been a widow for twenty years ; her 
 only daughter was married, and lived in 
 Poitou. But, though she was alone, she
 
 156 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 found life agreeable, and, in order that it 
 should continue so, she avoided troubles for 
 herself, and kept resolutely clear of those of 
 others. She had an excellent position in the 
 world, and for the best of reasons ; she was 
 gay and amusing, said bitter things, and 
 gave memorable dinners. 
 
 As soon as the servants had left the room 
 M. de Morvan began. " I have come to 
 consult you, Juliette. I fancy that what I 
 am going to say will interest you. I think 
 I told you, when I came back last time from 
 Italy, that I had met at Venice a curious 
 English child, that I had been much struck by 
 her, and that I was sorry to have lost sight 
 of her. Well — that child is in Paris, and I 
 feel, more than ever, that she is wonderfully 
 endowed, and that there are within her 
 capabilities which it would be unscientific to 
 neglect. She lives with an aunt who, evi- 
 dently, is rich, and I infer, from words they 
 have let drop, that their name is a good one 
 — one of those territorial names, without a 
 title, which are special to England. All that, 
 however, is mere gilding to the frame. The 
 picture itself is what has impressed me. I
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 157 
 
 want to have a hand in guiding that child." 
 And then he ceased to speak. 
 
 '* Go on, Charles/' said his sister, finishing 
 the last drops of her coffee, " I suppose that 
 is not all." 
 
 ^' Well— alii— no ! I should like you to 
 help me." 
 
 " My poor Charles ! " exclaimed Madame 
 d'H^ristal, moving from the breakfast -table 
 to an arm-chair; "my poor Charles! Quite 
 mad ! quite mad ! Your own follies are 
 your own affairs — I never interfere with 
 them. Your quixotisms are usually harm- 
 less, and I trust this one will be so too — 
 though it seems to me to be distinctly more 
 insane than anything I have known you do. 
 But if you choose to burden yourself with 
 cares that in no way concern you, at all 
 events do not ask me to accept a share in 
 them. Go to some charitable soul. Go to 
 Henriette de Koche-Charente, or to Marie 
 d'xlrgentan, or, best of all, to that vener- 
 able enthusiast, the old Duchess on the 
 other side of the street. Go to somebody 
 w^ho lives for good works. But, Charles, 
 for the love of common-sense, do not come
 
 158 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 to me, who never could abide good works. 
 Whatever it be you want of me, I refuse 
 beforehand." 
 
 ''Just so, Juliette. Of course. May I 
 smoke 1 I know your views. You have 
 explained them to me on other occasions. 
 I reverence them, as becomes a respectful 
 brother. But I began by saying that my 
 tale would interest you, and, usually, when 
 you are interested you listen." 
 
 " Am I to be interested first, and listen 
 afterwards ? " asked the Marquise. " Or am 
 I to begin by listening on the mere supposi- 
 tion that I shall be interested ? That would 
 be a good deal for even a brother to ask of 
 a woman of experience like me." 
 
 '* The other night at the Fran9ais," replied 
 M. de Morvan, " you declared you were 
 carried away by the scheme of education 
 that Croizette propounded about her niece — 
 you do have emotions sometimes, you know, 
 Juliette — and you admitted even that it 
 would amuse you to have a niece of your 
 own to fashion. I bring you the niece. Is 
 not that interesting ? " 
 
 " Wonderful ! What a brother I enjoy I
 
 CLAIRE BRA^^DOX. 159 
 
 And a niece too ! A British niece ! — all 
 elbows and teeth, I suppose. My dear 
 Charles, you are really too generous ; you 
 spoil me." 
 
 "Now, Juliette, do remember Croizette. 
 You applauded furiously when she rushed 
 down to the footlis^hts and exclaimed : ' To 
 make a man is the w^ork of every day ; to 
 make a woman is a privilege, so infinitely few 
 women are capable of being made.' If that 
 theory pleased you then, why should it not 
 please you now ? It pleases me, I assure 
 you, and I am delighted to have found an 
 unexpected opportunity of applying it. I 
 propose to you to do the same. It is not 
 often that one gets the chance of transfer- 
 ring a situation from the theatre to real life. 
 Ordinarily, it is the other way." 
 
 "You do interest me, Charles. Honestly, 
 you do. You are altogether stupendous ! 
 How young you are ! I could never have 
 invented a niece, even if I wanted one. And 
 what do you propose to do with the niece ? " 
 
 " The first thing I propose to do is to bring 
 the young lady and her aunt to you — this 
 afternoon, if you will. The second is, that I
 
 160 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 want you to get Laure's box at the opera for 
 me to-morrow night — if she does not use it 
 herself I mean to take them there." 
 
 " To anybody else I should answer, un- 
 hesitatingly, No," returned the Marquise. 
 '' But one has, unfortunately, duties towards 
 one's family — and that fact has often made 
 me think it is a great mistake to have a 
 family. So, to you, Charles, I am forced, out 
 of decency, to say Yes. But I say it most 
 unwillingly. I have a vague sensation that 
 you are leading me to the bottom of the sea.^' 
 
 " Thank you, Juliette. As you are a keen 
 judge of good talking and good manners, I 
 think you will be satisfied this afternoon." 
 
 At fiYQ: o'clock Harriet Brandon and Claire, 
 accompanied by M. de Morvan, entered the 
 drawing-room of Madame d'Heristal. 
 
 The Marquise, who had a very grand air 
 when she liked, and was a consummate 
 woman of the world, advanced slowly to 
 meet them, bowed, did not hold out her 
 hand, and said, coldly, *' I am happy to make 
 the acquaintance of friends of my brotlier." 
 And then she fixed her eyes on Claire with 
 a hard stare.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 161 
 
 Claire returned the gaze T\'itli such steadi- 
 ness and calm, that, after an effort of several 
 seconds, the Marquise could go on no longer, 
 and was forced, to her vexation, to give 
 way. 
 
 She said, with marked acerbity, "Are you 
 accustomed to look at the sun, mademoiselle?" 
 
 " Only, madame," was the reply, " on the 
 rare occasions when its brilliancy exercises 
 over me a fascination I cannot resist. I have 
 just had one of those good fortunes, and I have 
 ventured to profit by it." 
 
 Like most Frenchwomen of the last genera- 
 tion, the Marquise was an enthusiast about 
 forms of talk and well-shaped sentences, and 
 the words used by Claire, impertinent though 
 they were, turned her suddenly from irritation 
 to admiration. 
 
 " My dear child ! " she exclaimed, '* come 
 and kiss me. That is the most charmino: 
 speech I have listened to since my husband 
 made court to me. Indeed, the Marquis 
 never said anything half so delicate as that.'' 
 
 Claire crossed the room to Madame d'Heri- 
 stal, curtsied profoundly, and then stooped 
 over her hand and raised it to her lips. 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 162 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 '' The language of Sevigne and the manners 
 of Henriette d'Angleterre !" cried the Marquise 
 with enthusiasm. "Charles, I am interested. 
 You have more than kept your promise. Sit 
 there, next to me, my child. At least, if you 
 will permit it, madame," added the Marquise, 
 turning courteously to Miss Brandon, whose 
 presence she had momentarily forgotten. '' I 
 have to beg your forgiveness for the distrac- 
 tion your niece has caused me. She does 
 you so much honour, that I venture to hope 
 you will pardon me for being absorbed in 
 admiration of her." 
 
 " You could say nothing," answered Harriet 
 Brandon, " that could give me more pleasure, 
 or go straighter to my heart. I am delighted 
 that it is the sister of our true friend M. de 
 Morvan who speaks to me in that way of 
 Claire." 
 
 "Now, what can I do for you and for 
 Mademoiselle Claire, madame ? To tell you 
 the truth," added the Marquise, laughing, " I 
 never do anything for anybody — not even for 
 my brother, though I have every reason to 
 believe, so far as I can judge, that I am very 
 fond of him. But Mademoiselle Claire has led
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 163 
 
 me, suddenly, and in a fashion which is new 
 to me, to wish to be of use to her, and the 
 sensation is so strange that I should like to 
 act upon it before it fades. So let me again 
 ask, what can I do for you 1 " 
 
 Miss Brandon and Claire looked at each 
 other. The form in which this declaration 
 was made did not exactly please either of 
 them. Miss Brandon said, however, as if she 
 were delighted, " A beneficent fairy offers us 
 the satisfaction of all our desires. Claire, 
 what shall we ask from the enchantress ! " 
 
 Claire answered, " I should like to know 
 some French people." 
 
 Madame d'HeristaFs face turned rather 
 grave again, as she replied, " How old are 
 you, my child ? I fancy you have not 
 attained the age at which girls usually enter 
 the w^orld. I can depart from my own rules, 
 but I might not be able, with all the magic 
 power which your aunt so flatteringly attrib- 
 utes to me, to get others to depart from theirs. 
 I could not force open the salons of Paris for 
 a girl of fifteen." 
 
 M. de Morvan, who, so far, had looked on 
 silently, intervened at this point of the con-
 
 164 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 versation : he observed — "If I rightly inter- 
 pret the thoughts of Mademoiselle , Claire, 
 she has no desire to go into society, in the 
 ordinary meaning of the phrase. For that she 
 will wait until her years entitle her to claim 
 her place. She has been accustomed for some 
 time, at Venice, to contact with men and 
 women, and it would be pleasant to her aunt 
 and herself to continue that contact here." 
 
 *' That is what I meant to say," added Claire. 
 
 " Contact with men and women I " said the 
 Marquise. " Hum ! That is a wide description 
 of your needs, my dear. But I will see. Will 
 you all dine with me on Thursday '? I will 
 arrange some ' contacts ' for you." And then 
 they went away. 
 
 M. de Morvan put Miss Brandon into her 
 carriage and returned up-stairs to his sister. 
 
 She greeted him with the exclamation, 
 " Grand Dieu, Charles ! that is, as you say, 
 a curious young person. In all my long ex- 
 perience I have not seen a child in whom 
 there is, evidently^ so much, and into whom 
 so much more may, probably, be put. She is 
 not pretty — though she may become so later 
 on — but she is singularly distinguished in
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 165 
 
 appearance ; and as for her manners and her 
 talk, they are remarkable. She is as self- 
 possessed as I am, and that, Charles, is saying 
 a good deal. But — there is a but — to an old- 
 fashioned woman like me, there is something 
 difficult to follow in these new products of 
 education. How did this child become what 
 she is ? It cannot have been by sitting on a 
 form, as I did, and having her knuckles rapped 
 — as I did too. I do not suppose she knows 
 what a form is. After all, is it desirable that 
 there should be many of her species ? The 
 world, as I have practised it, would go out of 
 sight if all the girls were like her. You know, 
 Charles, with all her cjualities, she is, undeni- 
 ably, a little forward and a little impertinent ; 
 and I cannot get myself to believe that for- 
 wardness and impertinence — however clever 
 be their shape of manifestation — are desirable 
 elements of character at fifteen, or, indeed, at 
 any later age. I have an antique prejudice in 
 favour of what the nuns at the Sacre Coeur 
 used to call 'modesty.' The word is a silly 
 one ; it is a nun's word ; it expresses inexactly 
 and insufficiently the deference and subordi- 
 nation which young people ought to show to
 
 166 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 their elders ; but, for want of a better word, I 
 use it. This child seems to me not to have 
 enough of that deference, and to rely too ex- 
 clusively on herself. I admire immensely the 
 resolution with which she looked me in the 
 face just now, and I admire still more the 
 presence of mind and the intelligence with 
 which she answered the rough observation I 
 made to her about it ; but, in principle, no 
 child of fifteen has the right to stare in that 
 way at a woman of sixty. I admire it, but I 
 blame it. It was incredibly well done — but 
 it ought not to have been done." 
 
 "May I answer?" asked M. de Morvan. 
 " You, my dear Juliette, rebel, most natural- 
 ly, against what you call ' new products of 
 education ' — such products, by the way, are 
 singularly rare, though I fancy they will 
 become more frequent in the future. As 
 things stand at present, I fully understand 
 your objections. But even if the defects which 
 you say this child possesses did really exist in 
 her — which I deny — I should urge, from my 
 point of view, that it is worth while to have 
 them, if the qualities to which they correspond 
 can be purchased at no other price."
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 167 
 
 *' A defect, a price, a purchase, a quality ! " 
 broke in Madame d'Heristal. '' Why, you are 
 getting into book-keeping, Charles ! " 
 
 " You purposely distort my meaning, Juli- 
 ette. You know, as well as I do, that in 
 using the words price and purchase, I am 
 referring simply to the compensations which 
 are the basis of every character. But I repeat 
 my denial of your accusation. Claire Brandon 
 has not the defects which, hastily and at first 
 sight, you attribute to her. I know her very 
 well, and I affirm that she is neither forward 
 nor impertinent. Her nature is very open 
 to impressions, very eager, very manifesting. 
 Those inborn dispositions have been strength- 
 ened by the exceptional conditions under 
 which she has been living. It is precisely 
 because she is all this that she needs good 
 guidance now, in order to bring out, if pos- 
 sible, the most perfect fruit from the seed 
 which has been sown in her." 
 
 "Well, I will suspend my judgment," re- 
 plied the Marquise. '' I like her. As you said 
 would be the case, she interests me. But if 
 I do consent — in contradiction to all my 
 theories of conduct — to give myself some
 
 168 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 trouble about the young lady, I shall go to 
 work to smooth her down, and not to push 
 her up. There is enough up in her already." 
 
 " There I entirely agree with you. She 
 requires direction, and she is worthy of it. 
 Otherwise I should not disturb the serenity 
 of your existence by seeking to introduce into 
 it a disturbing element of this sort. What 
 group will you collect on Thursday ? " 
 
 "Ah — yes; we must think of that. It is 
 not easy. I cannot tell people I want them 
 to produce an impression on a child. That 
 would be too absurd. And yet I must choose 
 half-a-dozen talkers to whom she can listen 
 with pleasure, and who will give her a good 
 first impression of French * contacts.' I like 
 that word ' contacts,' Charles. It is so 
 superbly pretentious. It has in it none of 
 the modesty I was talking of just now. Who 
 invented it ? You '? Or the child ? I shall 
 adopt it. I shall call my dinners ' contacts,' 
 and invite people to do me the honour of 
 ' contacting ' with me at half-past seven. For 
 introducing a new word into use, I shall be 
 quoted, in future dictionaries, amongst the 
 founders of the language. Eeally, I shall
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 169 
 
 owe you a great deal, my dear Charles, both 
 now and hereafter. How can I ever repay you?" 
 
 The Thursday arrived. 
 
 Claire was taken in to dinner by Hugues 
 de Cresse, a young soldier, a distant cousin 
 of Madame d'Heristal, and sat between him 
 and the famous dramatist Orgelle, member 
 of the Academic Frangaise. The other guests 
 were Michel Gras the painter, the Duke and 
 Duchess de Saintes, and Mademoiselle de 
 Yerdon, a ward of M. de Morvan, who was 
 invited in order that Claire should not be 
 the only girl. 
 
 As happens not unfrequently when eflfort is 
 made to obtain a particular result, the dinner 
 was not a success. It disappointed Claire. 
 The soldier told her, confidentially, that his 
 colonel was a brute, and then described to 
 her a series of recent balls. The Academician 
 expressed to her the conviction that the earth 
 would circulate more perfectly through space 
 if there were no women on it. The painter 
 mentioned that in his last picture the grass 
 grew, the birds sang, and the sea roared, and 
 that the study of that picture would be, for
 
 170 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 an ignorant person like Claire, the highest 
 attainable form of art-contemplation. Made- 
 moiselle de Verdon held her tongue, as be- 
 came a well-brought-up young lady from a 
 convent. The Duchess de Saintes observed 
 three times that the weather had been damp. 
 The Duke told Harriet Brandon that there 
 was going to be an agricultural show, and 
 that he hoped to get a prize for his Nor- 
 mandy pigs. M. de Morvan was out of 
 spirits, and silent. Madame d'Heristal alone 
 talked brightly. 
 
 When they drove away, Miss Brandon said, 
 " Well, Claire, if that is all Paris can produce, 
 we have come a long way for nothing." 
 
 The next day, Madame d'Heristal called on 
 Miss Brandon, but did not find her. She was 
 told, however, that Claire was at home. She 
 reflected for an instant, and then said to her- 
 self, "AVell, perhaps that is the best thing 
 that could have happened. I will see her." 
 
 Claire received her with the ease of manner 
 and the flow of talk that were proper to her, 
 regretted the absence of her aunt, and hoped 
 that the Marquise would be able to remain 
 till she came in.
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 171 
 
 Madame d'Heristal answered, " My dear 
 child, I am not sorry to see you alone for a 
 few minutes. I want to make a speech to 
 you. My brother feels a deep interest in 
 you, and he has communicated part of that 
 interest to me. As he is so real a friend of 
 yours, I trust you will not think I am inter- 
 fering with what does not concern me, if I say 
 a few words to you about yourself." 
 
 *' Oh, madame," said Claire, " we shall be 
 most grateful to you for advice, and my aunt 
 will be as delighted as I am to see that you 
 are kind enough to think of me." 
 
 *'Then, my dear child, I will go on. My 
 brother has asked me to throw facilities in 
 your way here ; but, as I told you the first 
 time I saw you, it seems to me, with my 
 French notions, that it is altogether too soon 
 for you to think of the social side of life. 
 I have an old - fashioned belief in what is 
 called ' education ' — in the French sense of 
 the word, I mean ; of * education ^ as the 
 process which forms character, in distinction 
 from ' instruction,' which is the process that 
 forms knowledge. Instruction is your own 
 own affair. I leave you to decide whether
 
 172 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 you will or will not work at books. I cannot 
 help you there ; nor does that side of the 
 question attract me much. But as regards 
 education, I fancy I could be of service to 
 you ; and though it is against my principles 
 to render service to anybody, I feel myself 
 tempted to make an exception for you. Spon- 
 taneous generation — of the sort you have 
 grown out of — was not known when I was 
 young. In my time, girls did not leap on to 
 the stage of womanhood like a fairy out of 
 a trap. They went through a slow process 
 of formation, which ended when they were 
 eighteen. That was the weak part of it — 
 it ended ; as if education could ever end ! 
 But, with that exception, I regard the process 
 as the right one ; and as you have not passed 
 through it, I am unable to admit — whatever 
 be your intelligence — that you have been 
 prepared for life. Nature and opportunity 
 have done a great deal for you ; but neither 
 nature nor opportunity can produce a com- 
 plete result without the aid of guidance and 
 of labour. I doubt whether you have ever 
 been guided, and I know that you have 
 never worked. If you are disposed to re-
 
 CLAIEE BEANDON. 173 
 
 cognise the trutli of what I say, then I 
 will ask your aunt's permission to render 
 you such services as I can, while you re- 
 main in Paris. But those services will not 
 be of the sort which, apparently, you have 
 expected from me. They will be shaped by 
 my experience of life, and their object will 
 be to aid you to extract the utmost from 
 yourself. What do you say. Miss Claire ? " 
 
 ** I thank you most profoundly, madame, 
 for every word you have just spoken; and 
 I am touched to the bottom of my heart 
 by the proof of interest you have given me. 
 What do you think I ought to do ? " 
 
 *' Ho ! ho ! " exclaimed the Marquise ; " as 
 if I could tell you that in detail straight off ! 
 It is easy enough to describe what you have 
 not done, but to specify what you ought to 
 do is a very different matter. I can only 
 say, in general terms^ that you ought not 
 to go beyond your age, as you do now ; 
 that you ought to behave as if you were 
 fifteen, and not as if you were twenty ; that 
 you ought to be guided, and not to guide 
 yourself; that you ought to remember you 
 have an aunt. What will she say to all this ? "
 
 174 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 " She will think what I think/' answered 
 Claire. " She will " 
 
 " Now, there I stop you," broke in Madame 
 d'Heristal. *' She will think what you think ! 
 What right have you to say that 1 That is 
 spontaneous generation again. Let your aunt 
 think for herself. It is not your business to 
 think for her. And perhaps she may tell 
 me it is not my business to say what I 
 am saying now. You see, my dear child, 
 you supply me at once with an example 
 of what you ought not to do. What you 
 ought to do in this particular case — that, 
 at all events, I can see — is to let me tell the 
 story to your aunt, and to leave her to reply, 
 uninfluenced by your domination over her." 
 
 ^' My domination over my aunt ! " cried 
 Claire. " Do you think I dominate my 
 aunt 1 Oh, madame, I should indeed be 
 sorry to believe that." 
 
 " Delicious ! " exclaimed the Marquise, clap- 
 ping her hands. '' Do you mean to say you 
 are unconscious that your aunt is your slave ? " 
 
 " Never shall that be said to me again, 
 madame I " was the angry reply. " If, in 
 ignorance, I have led you, or any one else.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 175 
 
 to imao^ine such a thino; as that, it shall 
 henceforth be my constant effort to efface 
 the impression. My feelings towards my 
 aunt are full of tenderness, respect, and grati- 
 tude. I am ashamed that you can think I 
 dominate her. It pains me ; it humiliates 
 me to hear it.'' 
 
 ** Decidedly, my dear child,'' said the Mar- 
 quise, taking Claire's hand ; '^ there is even 
 more in you than I thought. What you 
 have just said, and especially your manner of 
 saying it, -proYo that you are as good as 
 you are clever. I did not expect that. 
 Clever people are rarely good. The task of 
 putting you straight will not be difficult. 
 Your faults do not lie deep. I feel quite 
 encouraged. Think over what I have said 
 to you. I will have a talk with your aunt. 
 Meanwhile, remember that I want to be your 
 friend." 
 
 As soon as the Marquise had gone, Claire 
 stood still in the middle of the room and 
 thouo'ht. She was indio-nant with herself for 
 seeminoj to merit the observations Madame 
 d'Heristal had addressed to her, and she was 
 indio;nant with Madame d'Heristal for makinp:
 
 176 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 them. But, with the common-sense which 
 formed the basis of her character, and with 
 the judgment which — premature as it was — 
 she had acquired from experience, she was 
 forced to recognise the general truth of those 
 observations. One of them, only one, was, in 
 her opinion, utterly unfounded — the accusa- 
 tion that she dominated her aunt. It was in 
 reality perfectly merited, but she was uncon- 
 scious of that. The charge wounded her 
 deeply. Her love for her aunt was so in- 
 tense that she could not comprehend such an 
 imputation. But the Marquise had put it 
 forward as if she believed it ; therefore others 
 might believe it too. Claire stared at herself 
 with anger, and said, "It is I, Claire, who 
 have conveyed to others the impression that 
 I dominate my aunt. That is shameful of 
 me ! " And thereon she burst into tears. 
 
 While the tears were wet upon her cheeks, 
 the door opened, and her aunt came in. 
 
 Claire rushed to her, flung her arms round 
 her, and cried, " Sweet Tatte, Madame d'Heris- 
 tal has been here, and has lectured me. And 
 I deserve it. And she is going to speak to 
 you about m.e. But I cannot wait for that.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 177 
 
 I am dissatisfied with myself, and I mean to 
 change — from this moment. I was, indeed, 
 dissatisfied before she spoke to me. I have 
 been becoming conscious for some time past 
 that I wanted somethino- — somethino- I could 
 not define. But I can now. I see it plainly. 
 It is that, at my age, I ought to be a child. 
 I have suddenly realised that. Madame 
 d'Heristal has told me, and she is ri^ht. 
 I am going to begin my education now — 
 that is, if you approve, darling Tatte. It is 
 rather late ; but by working hard, as I in- 
 tend to do, I may regain lost time. And 
 above all, dearest, I mean to make you very 
 happy, and to be your loving, obedient child. 
 And I want you — you — to help me." And 
 they kissed each other many times, and felt 
 that afiection is a great good. 
 
 Madame d'Heristal had her conversation 
 with Miss Brandon. M. de Morvan talked 
 to his sister. Both of them offered counsel 
 to Claire. She listened with attention, made 
 few replies, thought much, formed resolutions, 
 asked her aunt if she approved those reso- 
 lutions, and then begged her to carry them 
 into execution. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 178 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 The result was that Miss Grant and Fraulein 
 Yoge], who for some years had been supposed 
 to be joint - governesses to Claire, obtained 
 opportunities of returning to their respective 
 native lands, and that Mademoiselle Serret, 
 a Belgian, was appointed in their place. 
 
 Mademoiselle Serret had passed all possible 
 examinations, and possessed all possible diplo- 
 mas. She was even more mad about strict 
 systems, strict rules, strict hours, and strict 
 principles, than Madame Hoche had been 
 about " facilities,^' " contacts," and " absorp- 
 tions." She crammed knowledge into her 
 pupils as a manufacturer of foie gras stuffs 
 food into his poultry. She regarded teaching 
 as a crocodile regards its teeth — as a means of 
 crunching out individuality. She was utterly 
 insupportable and detestable. And those were 
 the reasons why Claire asked to be placed 
 under her direction. She told her aunt she 
 wanted to give herself a period of discipline. 
 
 Finally, it was agreed that they should stop 
 in Paris for a while. They sent to Venice for 
 their belongings, and established themselves in 
 an apartment in the Kue St Florentin. 
 
 There Claire threw herself, with the ardour
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 179 
 
 of her nature, into resolute study. Excepting 
 Madame d'H^ristal and M. de Morvan, she 
 saw no one. She worked at everything at 
 once ; and above all, she laboured, with un- 
 failing purpose, to lead her own thoughts into 
 order and subordination. She analysed her 
 feelinofs with a feverish desire to attain the 
 '"modesty" which Madame d'Heristal had told 
 her, in one of their conversations, she did not 
 possess. And after long communing with her- 
 self, she finished by perceiving that the liberty 
 she had once thought so necessary may grow 
 into a burden rather than a joy, and that in 
 the reality of life it is often a privilege to obey 
 rather than to command. 
 
 And she became obedient, not by nature, 
 but from reflection. 
 
 Her petulance, her precocity, her forward- 
 ness disappeared. Her enthusiasm was less 
 passionate. Her will remained in all its force, 
 but it was no longer impetuous, and it served 
 reason rather than feeling. She acquired 
 steadiness, self-control, and an even balance 
 of temper. 
 
 The hard combat with herself lasted four 
 years. She continued it resolutely until she
 
 180 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 had won. The struggle was full of varied and 
 constantly recurring difficulties, and if she had 
 not been held up by amour propre, and by 
 an inexhaustible sentiment of dignity and of 
 duty, she would many times have abandoned 
 it. Eeligion aided her almost as much as 
 pride. She believed even that it helped her 
 more. Her prayers for constant strength and 
 unfading will supported her ; it was in the 
 Madeleine that she sought courage in her 
 moments of exhaustion. 
 
 At last one day she said to Madame d'Her- 
 istal, who had looked on with wonder at all 
 this, and had become so earnestly attached to 
 Claire that she was amazed at the affection 
 which had grown up in her selfish heart, 
 " You told me to be ' modest.' The word 
 meant more, far more, than I understood 
 when you used it to me. But, thanks to 
 your advice, I have done my best to merit 
 it ; and now that I am approaching woman- 
 hood, 1 see more and more how right you were, 
 and how vast is my debt to you. I think I 
 may say at last that I have taught myself to 
 obey and to be silent." 
 
 She spoke the truth. The effects of the
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 181 
 
 cliarige in her were visible in a hundred ways. 
 But she herself was conscious of it especially 
 in one particular direction. The longing to 
 question her aunt about her parents and her 
 birth had become almost intolerable. And yet 
 she supported it. On two occasions Bertha 
 had made accidental allusions to details of 
 what had happened in her babyhood, and 
 she was certain that Berthe knew the secret, 
 if secret there were. Still neither to Berthe, 
 who had become a sort of foster-mother to her, 
 nor to her aunt, would she allow herself to say 
 one word. Harriet Brandon thought she had 
 forgotten, and it was an immense relief to her 
 to indulo;e that belief. But Claire remembered, 
 and wondered, though she did not speak. 
 
 Her nature, which at Venice had been all on 
 the outside, grew concentrated in Paris. The 
 influences that surrounded her had changed 
 completely, and she had forced herself to 
 change with them. 
 
 In knowledge, too, she had made vast pro- 
 gress. Even Mademoiselle Serret — in whose 
 eyes professors were all dunces, and savants 
 were only smatterers, who was convinced that 
 since Albertus Magnus nobody had ever
 
 182 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 known anything until Mademoiselle Serret 
 had condescended to appear on earth — even 
 she was forced to admit that Claire had 
 acquired an extraordinary quantity of in- 
 struction. Paris had largely served her. She 
 had found, as M. de Morvan had told her when 
 she first arrived, that the atmosphere of Paris 
 is peculiarly teaching. She had discovered 
 by experience that the facilities it ofiers are 
 not only most numerous and varied, but also 
 that they are of a nature altogether proper to 
 the place. She had perceived that the lumin- 
 ousness, the clearness, the precision which were 
 once such representative elements of French 
 intelligence, had left (though they have almost 
 entirely disappeared) a mark which is not yet 
 effaced, and that French methods of trans- 
 mission of thought, French forms of explana- 
 tion, French processes of intellectual direction, 
 were singularly exact, expressive, and com- 
 municative. She felt that she could have 
 studied nowhere else as she studied there, and 
 that the action of Paris was especially fitted 
 to the treatment of such a case as hers. By 
 these advantages she had profited to the 
 utmost. '
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 183 
 
 Nature had not given her, however, all the 
 capacities she desired, and she suffered from some 
 of her insufficiencies. She had an ardent lono-iDo- 
 to sing grandly, as the completest and intens- 
 est form of outpoured feeling ; but, though 
 she was an accomplished pianist, and had ac- 
 quired a wide acquaintance with music, she 
 had no voice, and could only hum and warble. 
 She could not draw correctly. She had never 
 been able to acquire control over figures, and 
 was very deficient in all arithmetical aptitudes. 
 But notwithstanding these gaps, she had 
 gTOwn, as M. de Morvan had expected, into 
 a most remarkable young woman. To ex- 
 tended knowledge, she united bright pene- 
 tration and winning goodness ; and to employ 
 them all in their full application, she possessed 
 a perfect memory, a brilliant skill of talk, and 
 a universal sympathy with sufferers. 
 
 She was tall and very slight. Her features 
 were not regular, and she was too pale ; but 
 her face possessed an animation and an ex- 
 pressiveness which more than compensated for 
 the absence of ordinary beauty. Her physical 
 distinction was extreme. Her hands and feet 
 were singularly delicate and slender. The
 
 184 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 strange deepness of her eyes, the rare elegance 
 of her movements, the natural dignity of her 
 bearing, struck even the passers in the street. 
 Above all, she carried her head with a 
 mixture of lightness, grace, and stateliness, 
 which was special to herself, and which con- 
 stituted the essential mark of her person. 
 Nothing could be more characteristic, more 
 purely and properly individual, than the move- 
 ments of her neck, and the fashion in which 
 she threw it backwards. 
 
 Madame d'Heristal used to say, " Claire's 
 head tells the story of Claire's life. Who ever 
 saw such a descriptive head ? All the phases 
 of her nature are represented in its motion. 
 When she casts it back with the declaration 
 of will that the act so evidently implies, 
 it seems to me that I read in it her whole 
 temperament. Never was there such a re- 
 velation of character by movement. Her 
 hands are wonderfully eloquent, their power 
 of narrative is astonishing, but her neck and 
 head speak out in clearer language still. 
 They cry her thoughts to the four winds." 
 
 M. de Morvan looked on at the success of 
 what he considered to be his work, with the
 
 CLAIKE BRAXDOX. 185 
 
 delighted vanity of an amateur musician 
 listening to an opera of his o^vn composition. 
 He had arrived by degrees at the belief that 
 it was he who had invented Claire, and that 
 without his aid she would never have grown 
 into what she was. It was a solace to his old 
 age and to his delicately critical spirit to con- 
 template her development, and to admire in 
 her, as he thought, the fruit of his own initia- 
 tive and his ow^n co-operation. He often said to 
 Madame d'H^ristal, " Eeally, my dear Juliette, 
 we have reason to be very satisfied with what 
 we have effected. Of all the work of my life, 
 I think this concluding effort is the most in- 
 teresting and the most satisfying. We have 
 between us made a wonderful woman." 
 
 And the Marquise was pleased enough with 
 her own share of the operation to be able to 
 listen to her brother's rejoicings without con- 
 tradicting him. 
 
 Harriet Brandon was the only member of 
 the group who was not satisfied. Notwith- 
 standing the changes which had come about in 
 her character, her inherent preferences were 
 still in favour of the independence which 
 springs from self-will, and she could not bring
 
 186 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 herself to approve tlie sacrifice of unruliness 
 by Claire. She had still hidden away in her 
 the old love of stubbornness, the old tendency 
 to impulse, the old trust in " going straight." 
 Time and circumstance had diminished the 
 force of these dispositions, and had largely 
 modified their composition and their effects, 
 but they remained uneradicated, and in her 
 heart she regretted her "glorious Claire" 
 of Venice, the insubordinate tempestuous 
 child whose spirit was so like her own that 
 she had sometimes given herself the joy of 
 thinking that she had inherited it from her. 
 She knew that will was still in Claire as 
 strong as ever ; but it had become disciplined 
 will, and discipline to Miss Brandon implied 
 submission, and, therefore, loss of individual 
 value. 
 
 Sometimes she talked to Claire about it. 
 But Claire^s answers did not convince her. 
 On this one point the aunt and the niece 
 could not agree. Claire knew that she had 
 gained, and said so. But as she had gained 
 by the loss of what her aunt liked best in: her, 
 as she had gained by curing herself of defects 
 which in her aunt's eyes were qualities, it was
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 187 
 
 not altogether unnatural that her aunt should 
 roourn over the substitution. 
 
 M. de Morvan judged Claire as an art critic 
 of finished women, and saw in her the delight- 
 ful harvest of his own cultivation. 
 
 Madame d'HMstal looked at her as a woman 
 of the world, and was pleased to have helped 
 to add to the general stock of capacity, merit, 
 and grace. 
 
 Mademoiselle Serret viewed her as an out- 
 come of machinery, and was satisfied, as the 
 engineer, to have evolved such a highly 
 wrought manufactured article from the some- 
 what fantastic raw material which had been 
 delivered into her bands a few years before. 
 
 Harriet Brandon thought that "glorious 
 Claire " had been too perfect to be improved, 
 and sorrowed that others had come in and 
 changed her.
 
 188 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 " It seems to me," said Harriet Brandon to 
 Claire, one morning after breakfast, 'Hhat our 
 reasons for continuing to stay in Paris are 
 beginning to diminish, and that other places 
 might now be more useful and more inter- 
 esting to you. What is your own impression, 
 Claire ? " 
 
 *^ I was going to say precisely the same 
 thing to you, my dear aunt. How delightful 
 it is to think together, as we do, and to be 
 always one together, as we are ! But though 
 we agree, it is for you only to decide. I will 
 stop or go, just as you like." 
 
 " Then, let us go, provided we can select 
 any satisfactory place to go to. I do so long 
 for a home. We had one at Venice. We 
 have not had one here. Paris has never been 
 more than a workshop to you, and a waiting-
 
 CLAIEE BRANDOX. 189 
 
 room to me. Not the faintest beonnnino* of 
 attachment to it has dawned in me durino^ 
 all the four years we have passed in it." 
 
 " A home ! " exclaimed Claire. '' Yes, I 
 too should like a home. Now that I am, as 
 Mademoiselle Serret is good enough to say, 
 * a symmetrically completed fabric,' now that 
 both * systems ' and ' contacts ' are less essential 
 for me, why should we not return to England 
 and fix ourselves there ? " 
 
 *' England ? " cried Harriet Brandon, with 
 surprise, but without dissatisfaction. "Eng- 
 land 1 " 
 
 '' Yes, England, Tatte. Why not ? We are 
 English." 
 
 " We are English, of course," was the reply, 
 " but we have no English ways, and scarcely 
 any English sympathies. And then, as I told 
 you before, I cannot meet my brother. That 
 would be impossible. And how could we be 
 sure not to meet him if we lived in England ? " 
 
 " Why, by keeping out of his way," an- 
 swered Claire, laughing. 
 
 Harriet Brandon felt scarcely any emotion 
 at this sudden suggestion. Time, changes, 
 new habits, and, above all, the effects of
 
 190 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 seventeen years of impunity, had slowly 
 cured her apprehensions. She took it for 
 granted that English people had forgotten 
 " the Brandon case," and that there was no 
 danger of Claire learning the truth. The 
 terror which seized her after the trial had 
 disappeared. It had been suddenly renewed 
 at Venice for a time, but it had faded away 
 again. Claire's position was no longer a cause 
 of anxiety to her. The world accepted Claire 
 as her brother's daughter, and that result had 
 grown to be enough for Harriet Brandon. 
 She lived in security, and thought herself so 
 safe, that she was no longer afraid of anything 
 — except of meeting George. On that single 
 point she remained unchanged. She thought 
 rarely of her brother, but when she did think 
 of him, it was with undiminished hate and 
 with the old longing for vengeance. All the 
 rest had drifted out of sight. 
 
 So, after a silence, she added, " Well, as 
 you say, why not ? I am not sure you will 
 like it. But we can try. Of course we shall 
 always travel, even if we have a home. My 
 own fancy would be to go back to Venice, but 
 I recognise that there are objections to that
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 191 
 
 plan. Only, before we decide anything, had 
 we not better ask M. de Morvan if he has 
 any ideas to offer us 1 He is so fond of you, 
 and so kind, that it would seem ungrateful 
 to tell him, abruptly, that we are going away. 
 And the Marquise too ; I think we are bound 
 to hear what she has to say." 
 
 So that night at dinner (they had formed 
 the habit of dinino: a o-ood deal with each 
 other), there was a discussion, at the end of 
 which Madame d'Heristal said, '•' Then, we 
 agree. I recapitulate our united views. You 
 go to England, and as soon as you are settled 
 somewhere, Charles and I will come to visit 
 you. I deeply regret your departure, but 
 I can uphold no argument against it. You 
 have no motive for fixing yourselves in Paris. 
 Its society would not content you, in its 
 present shape. It is indispensable to an old 
 woman like me, for I have spent my life in 
 it, and ties and habits bind me to it ; but to 
 neither of you two, as strangers, could it offer 
 sufficient satisfaction. It has lost both the 
 brilliancy and the charm it once possessed. 
 It has become unreal and hard. The manners 
 of our grandmothers have perished. The
 
 192 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 young women are taking up equivocal talk. 
 And furthermore, there is very little society 
 at all — even such as it is. The life of Paris 
 is no longer in the drawing-rooms. Indeed, 
 under this odious Government, I see life 
 nowhere in the land. The Eepublic has 
 obliterated the French. All the great special 
 qualities of the race have disappeared under 
 its baneful influence. No ; for outsiders, Paris 
 is no longer worth living in. You are right 
 to leave it — now that you have extracted 
 from it such good as it can give you. I 
 mourn, but I approve. Go to England." 
 
 " I mourn so much that I cannot approve," 
 observed M. de Morvan. " I have not the 
 stern philosophy of Juliette, who talks like 
 Mademoiselle Serret. My feelings dominate 
 my reason. It is useless to tell me that you 
 ought to go, for your going will leave in my 
 existence a blank that nothing can fill up. 
 At my age it is not possible to create new 
 objects. You are very dear to me, and you 
 are going. Do not expect me to applaud.^' 
 
 The next day Harriet Brandon wrote to 
 Mr Cumber to tell him the decision, and to 
 say they would be in London in a few weeks.
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 193 
 
 They found themselves, at first, rather lost 
 in London. They knew few people there. 
 The material conditions of life were new to 
 them, and did not satisfy them. The climate 
 and the gloom of the streets depressed them. 
 But as they had made up their minds to 
 give England a serious trial, and, if possible, 
 to ^x their home there, they determined to 
 do everything in their power to conquer 
 difficulties. With this object they told each 
 other that it was for them to change, for them 
 to throw off their imported fashions, for them 
 to bring themselves into harmony with English 
 customs and English talk. Just as, at Venice, 
 they would not have been surrounded by 
 society if they had persisted in being purely 
 English, so, in England, it was idle to per- 
 severe in being foreign. They determined to 
 try to fit themselves to English life, and, 
 with that purpose, to cure themselves, as 
 much as possible, of the habits and of the 
 prejudices they had contracted abroad. 
 
 It did not seem to Claire that it would be 
 difficult to do so. Not only did she wish 
 sincerely to succeed, but she had in her a 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 growing capacity of adaptability, and she felt 
 certain she could fit herself rapidly to novel 
 situations and to fresh usages. She did not 
 know much of the details of English life, but 
 so far as she had been able to perceive them, 
 superficially, there seemed to her to be little 
 in them that would repel her. 
 
 Within the limit of her acquaintance with 
 them, there was but one single practice to 
 which decidedly she would not attempt to con- 
 form. Notwithstanding the schooling she had 
 passed through, her character remained essen- 
 tially impulsive, and her ways and manners 
 were demonstrative. She knew that to be 
 properly and purely English she ought to 
 hide her impressions ; and this she could not 
 do, and did not wish to do. The general quiet- 
 ness of attitude of the English, the absence 
 of manifestations of sentiment amougst them, 
 made her angry. It was her conviction that 
 expression is both the indispensable and the 
 inevitable outcome of feeling, and she could 
 not bring herself to admit that wilful calm 
 and studied immobility can ever become 
 merits. No argument could persuade her that 
 placidity is a higher faculty than vivacity.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 195 
 
 Her view of behaviour was that language, 
 physiognomy, and action ; voice, look, and 
 attitude ; lips, eyes, and hands ; the speak- 
 ino's of the tono;ue, the variations of the 
 face, and the movements of the body, should 
 all co-operate together for the common cause, 
 all aid each other as mutual and associated 
 exhibitors of thought. She was convinced 
 that life would not convey to her the vig- 
 orous sensations she extracted from it, if 
 she had to pass it in unceasing repression 
 of all exterior notifications of herself. She 
 needed a constant harmony between her outer 
 showinors and her inner sensibilities. And 
 what she required to set forth in herself, she 
 desired to behold in others. She had been 
 accustomed to gather the impressions which 
 others wished to convey to her almost as 
 much from their faces and their movements 
 as from their words. To suppress action was, 
 in her mind, to enfeeble eloquence, and to 
 reduce the power of indicating thought. She 
 regarded gesture as feeling translated into 
 movement. To manifest emotion was to her 
 not only a necessity, but a pleasure and a 
 privilege, and never could she have decided to
 
 196 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 submit to the conventionality whicli leads so 
 many of the English to regard apathy as a 
 high form of virtue. She had been often told 
 that the woodeuness which Europe smiles at in 
 them is produced, in great part, by the opera- 
 tion of that most absurd and most unnatural 
 precept. She could not consent to follow it. 
 
 But the more she resisted on this one point, 
 the more she determined to give herself an 
 English shape in all other directions. The 
 natural fairness of her judgment, and the par- 
 ticular will which animated her to do her best 
 to become thoroughly English, combined to 
 decide her, again and again, to remove, so far 
 as she could, all obstacles in the way of realis- 
 ing that desire. She saw, more and more, that 
 the task was not difficult. She had heard from 
 many observers that England had been becom- 
 ing gradually less insular and more European 
 in its ways, and, with her quick perceptiveness, 
 her own eyes saw at once that the differences 
 between her countrymen and foreigners — 
 whatever they may have been in other days 
 — are now so little marked that there is no 
 longer any real barrier of either prejudice or 
 usage between England and the Continent.
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 197 
 
 She was confirmed in this impression by 
 the testimony of two witnesses with whom 
 they were establishing a new friendship. 
 
 When M. de Morvan was Secretary of 
 Legation he had become very intimate with 
 one of his foreign colleagues, M. Valona. 
 They had been together in several posts, and 
 afterwards had kept up constant communica- 
 tion with each other. M. Yalona — who, unlike 
 M. de Morvan, had continued in the service — 
 had risen to the rank of Minister, and had 
 been appointed, some years before, representa- 
 tive of his country in London. M. de Morvan 
 wrote to him and to Madame Valona, begging 
 them to go to see the Brandons, and asking 
 their sympathies for them, especially for 
 Claire. They came, were attracted, came 
 again, and came often. They were both 
 singularly full, even for cosmopolitans, of that 
 universal knowledge of European personages 
 and things which is only to be acquired 
 by long practice of political life in many 
 countries ; and from that knowledge and that 
 practice, there had grown up in them a width 
 of view, a sureness of appreciation, and a 
 steadiness of philosophy which delighted
 
 198 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Claire, and helped to reconcile her to 
 London. 
 
 The Valonas assured her, with many argu- 
 ments and examples, that the English have 
 gained immensely, as companions, during the 
 present generation, and that the pleasure of 
 living with them has correspondingly in- 
 creased. They told her that, according to 
 their own experience and that of many of 
 their colleagues, the conditions of life in 
 London offer now quite as many satisfac- 
 tions — intellectual, social, and material — as 
 can be found associated in any other capital. 
 And as regards the manner of existence in 
 general throughout the land, they pointed out 
 that from the spreading possession of money, 
 and from the consequent continuous multipli- 
 cation of the various elements of the middle 
 classes, England presents a far larger and far 
 more widely distributed national society than 
 can be found elsewhere, and, as a necessary 
 result, possesses a greater mass of educated 
 and organised thought than exists in other 
 countries. They asserted that this thought 
 comes out especially amongst the women, 
 who, in the eyes of foreigners, are making
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 199 
 
 greater progress than the men, and some few 
 of whom are beoinnino; to use their lano'uao^e 
 with a brilliancy that is quite new as a British 
 capacity. They mentioned particularly, as a 
 marked inducement for new-comers, the cordi- 
 ality and hospitality which are shown in Eng- 
 land to fresh acquaintances, when once they 
 are accepted. They recognised that the Eng- 
 lish do not possess the ease of ways, the 
 elegance of movements, the brio-htness of tone, 
 which are discoverable (though only excep- 
 tionally) in some of the societies of the Con- 
 tinent. They acknowledged that their man- 
 ners are often either rough or shy, and that 
 they have little sprightliness. But they in- 
 sisted that, viewing the present constitution 
 of English life as a whole, and weighing its 
 qualities and its defects, as strangers see them, 
 the English have profited more than any other 
 race by the international equalisation of social 
 capacities, which is one of the marks of our 
 period. And they concluded their statement 
 of the case by asserting that residence in 
 England is beginning to acquire a value and 
 an attraction which it did not offer in the past, 
 and which are producing a deep impression on
 
 200 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 the foreigners who have an opportunity of 
 measuring them. 
 
 These opinions encouraged Claire. She re- 
 ported them to her aunt, and insisted that, 
 coming from such a source, they presented 
 themselves with special weight. She wanted 
 to be convinced, and went frequently to the 
 Valonas to talk and listen. 
 
 At their house she made several acquaint- 
 ances. Amongst them was a Mrs Gordon^ an 
 old woman^ with a large knowledge of the 
 world, a fair intelligence, and an impression- 
 able heart. Mrs Gordon was much struck 
 by the brilliancy, the distinction, and the 
 elegance of Claire, and wished to see more 
 of her. So one day she asked Harriet 
 Brandon for permission to call upbn her. It 
 happened, on that occasion, that she remained 
 alone with the Yalonas after the Brandons had 
 left, and talked to them with warmth of Claire 
 and of the qualities she possessed. 
 
 Suddenly, as she spoke, a memory flashed 
 into her, vague and dim at first, but growing 
 clearer and more precise each instant. She 
 pressed her hand to her head, made an effort of 
 remembrance, and then exclaimed, " Brandon ?
 
 CLAIRE BEANDOX. 201 
 
 Brandon ? An aunt and a niece ? How 
 strange ! Can it be them ? Why have I not 
 thought of it before ? It must be them ! They 
 must be the heroines of the Brandon case ! It 
 is wonderful to stumble on to them like this ! 
 I had forgotten all about it ; but it comes 
 back to me now. It was so many years ago. 
 How old is the niece 1 " 
 
 M. and Madame Yalona listened with stupe- 
 faction. Of course they did not comprehend 
 one word. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " they, asked. " What 
 is ' the Brandon case ' 1 The niece may be 
 nineteen or twenty. But do, pray, tell us what 
 ai^e you talking about ? ' 
 
 " How astonishing I " cried [Mrs Gordon, 
 taking no notice of their eager Cjuestions. 
 " And how very interesting ! Why, your de- 
 lightful young friend must be the very girl 
 who was disinherited at that trial, and who 
 was declared to be illeo-itimate — thouo^h all 
 England was convinced of the contrary. What 
 a sensation it made at the time ! I remember 
 it better and better. Everybody took their 
 side. Everybody felt for them, and said it 
 was a shame. And everybody said the aunt
 
 202 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 behaved most admirably. By degrees, the 
 story was forgotten. But it all comes back 
 to me now. Of course these are the people ; 
 there can be no doubt about it. I ought to 
 have seen it at once." 
 
 And at last she told the Yalonas the de- 
 tails of the case, so far as she could recall 
 tbem, and they all became more interested 
 than ever in Claire. 
 
 " Well, what will you do ? " said M. Valona. 
 
 " I will go to them to-morrow," answered 
 Mrs Gordon. "I am sure the sincerest sym- 
 pathy will be felt for them, and that every- 
 body will be delighted to know them. Opinion 
 was altogether in their favour at the time ; 
 and, as I said just now, the aunt did behave 
 so well ! There is no prejudice about such 
 matters, and the declaration of illegitimacy 
 against the child will have no influence on 
 her position, especially as she is so wonder- 
 fully taking and is to inherit her aunt's 
 fortune. Money always helps, you know, 
 to guide opinion." 
 
 The next day Mrs Gordon called on the 
 Brandons. She was full of kindness and 
 goodwill; talked of her desire to be of use
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 203 
 
 to them ; declared that Claire would produce 
 a sensation; questioned her in much detail 
 about the life she had led, and on rising to 
 leave, after a long visit, said to Harriet 
 Brandon, " It has been a real pleasure to me 
 to come to you. And let me assure you 
 that, in addition to the other motives which 
 make me glad to know you, I am particularly 
 pleased to be able — though it is so long 
 afterwards — to express to you my admi- 
 ration of your noble conduct in that trial. 
 All the women of England felt for you and 
 praised you." 
 
 Harriet Brandon stared at her, shrank back 
 a step, turned very pale, trembled violently, 
 glanced with dread at Claire, and at last 
 gasped out, " Oh no, no, no ! Do not speak 
 of it. Pray, pray, do not speak of it. I 
 cannot — I cannot . . ." 
 
 And then it was Mrs Gordon's turn to stare. 
 Naturally, she had no clue to the cause of 
 Harriet Brandon's emotion, but she saw she 
 had made a mistake, and said, in a gentle 
 voice, " Forgive me if, thoughtlessly, I have 
 awakened memories which pain you. My 
 wish was to comfort you. Believe that. Do
 
 204 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 come to see me soon, very soon, and let me 
 hope that I may help to make London pleasant 
 for you/' 
 
 Then she was gone. 
 
 And the aunt and the niece were alone — 
 face to face — with somethinoj between them 
 that neither of them could measure. 
 
 They looked at each other, hesitating, un- 
 certain, fearing the next moment and the 
 next word, almost as if each doubted the 
 other. Some seconds passed, and then Claire 
 went to her aunt, took her in her arms, and 
 whispered, "Do not tell me. I do not ask 
 to know." 
 
 As Claire pronounced these unexpected 
 words, a burst of light broke into Harriet 
 Brandon. She saw, in an instantaneous illu- 
 mination of her heart, the use and meaning 
 of the change that Claire had worked out in 
 herself. The Claire that had been made at 
 Venice cried, " I luill know." The Claire that 
 had. been made in Paris murmured, " I do not 
 ask to know." And Harriet Brandon perceived 
 suddenly, at last, that there is a power above 
 mere ordinary will — a higher, nobler power — 
 a power of which she was now, in sudden trial,
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 205 
 
 forced to recognise the value — the power of 
 self-control. 
 
 She took Claire's hands and said, with infi- 
 nite love, " Sweet child, my admirable child ! 
 God bless you ! " And then feeling, both of 
 them, that they needed to be apart for a while, 
 they separated in silence, and each went to her 
 room and thought. 
 
 As soon as Claire had shut her door, she sat 
 down and repeated to herself the words that 
 Mrs Gordon had spoken. It was evident, from 
 those words, that her aunt had not told her 
 the whole truth at Venice. All she had said 
 there was that General Brandon had altered 
 his will ; that, in consequence, Claire had been 
 disinherited : that Georo'e Brandon had o-ot the 
 estate, and that, because he got it, she had 
 quarrelled with him. It appeared now, from 
 what Mrs Gordon had said, that her aunt had 
 been mixed up in a trial about something, that 
 she had behaved admirably, and that opinion 
 in England had been excited in her favour. 
 What could that mean ? At Venice Harriet 
 Brandon had been unable to support the com- 
 ing of her brother. In London she could not 
 support allusion to the trial. Her manner on
 
 206 CLAIEE BEANDON. 
 
 both occasions had shown the strangest emo- 
 tion. What could the trial have been about ? 
 If her aunt had behaved so well at that trial, 
 why should she fear to speak of it, as mani- 
 festly she did? There must assuredly be a 
 secret which her aunt was hiding from her. 
 Under all the circumstances, it seemed impos- 
 sible to doubt that there was a connection be- 
 tween George Brandon, the trial, and the secret. 
 But if there had been a trial connected with 
 the secret, the secret must have come out at 
 the trial, and if so, everybody knew it — except 
 herself. 
 
 After turning all this over, painfully, and 
 at first confusedly, in her head, Claire arrived 
 at the certainty that her aunt was concealing 
 something from her, and that that something 
 related to the Hurley property, and to her 
 own rights of inheritance of it. 
 
 As she went on analysing the situation, and 
 seeking to reduce its elements into order, two 
 cruel questions thrust themselves before her — 
 " If, for some motive, my aunt is deceiving 
 me, is it my duty to respect her attitude, to 
 remain deceived, and to make no attempt to 
 discover the truth which she thinks fit to
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 207 
 
 hide from me ? And if it is my duty to re- 
 main wilfully deceived, have I the power to 
 discharge that duty, to stay permanently silent, 
 and to preserve towards my aunt the confidence, 
 the gratitude, the tenderness which hitherto I 
 have felt for her 1 " 
 
 Claire rose, w^alked up and down the room, 
 and asked herself unceasingly, " Have I the 
 force to support this in silence ? And if I can 
 support it now, can I go on supporting it as 
 an accepted condition of my life, without ever 
 attempting to put an end to it by obtaining 
 information '? It is useless to begin unless 
 I am sure I can persevere." 
 
 She had no inclination to be violent. She 
 desired, on the contrary, to be guided solely 
 by reason, duty, and love. But could she 
 do it? 
 
 She sat down once more, took her head 
 in her hands, and meditated deeply. 
 
 While Claire was passing through this 
 anguish, Harriet Brandon was suffering almost 
 more. She was overcome by a renewed attack 
 of wild terror. She had always told herself 
 that Claire must never know that she had 
 been declared legally to be illegitimate. Her
 
 208 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 need to hide the secret was almost more in- 
 tense than ever ; it seemed to her too horrible 
 to confess. The idea of getting out of the 
 whole difficulty by simply telling Claire the 
 truth, never entered into her head. The 
 original obstinacy and wilfulness of her nature 
 remained intact, and continued to guide her in 
 the matter. In that respect her character had 
 not been modified, either by her passionate 
 affection for Claire, or by the growth in her — 
 from long-continued safety, and from the life 
 she had been leading — of insensibility to 
 danger until it actually burst upon her. As 
 she possessed no faculty of reasoning or of 
 seeing two sides of a case together, she was 
 incapable of considering whether, now that 
 Claire was a woman, and now that her sus- 
 picions had been excited, it would not be wiser 
 and kinder to let her know the facts than 
 to leave her in a suspense which, even if 
 she had the courage and the moral energy to 
 endure it, must, at the best, be cruelly trying 
 to her. All Harriet Brandon felt was that 
 Claire must learn nothing. But she perceived 
 that, in England, the secret was not in her 
 own keeping, and that, at any moment, Claire
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 209 
 
 misflit learn it from a strano-er. This Mrs 
 Gordon, a chance visitor, had almost told the 
 story in her presence. And what would Claire 
 say presently when they met again ? If she 
 asked the meaning of Mrs Gordon's words, 
 what answer could be made to her ? How 
 could an explanation be avoided ? She had 
 just said, it was true, that she would ask 
 nothing ; but was it possible to conceive that 
 she would or could carry out that intention ? 
 She had learnt too much to be able to remain 
 silent. Oh, why had they come to England ? 
 
 She suffered so intensely, she was so ab- 
 sorbed and so carried away by misery and 
 fear, that she became benumbed, stupefied, and 
 almost unconscious, and scarcely knew where 
 she was, or what was happening, when sud- 
 denly she was aware that Claire had entered 
 the room. 
 
 Harriet Brandon trembled, and had not the 
 courage to raise her eyes. 
 
 Claire went to the window, looked out, and 
 said in a quiet and almost natural voice, " It 
 is very fine, aunt. The carriage will be here 
 in a few minutes. Shall we go for a drive 1 " 
 And then she came across the room, and 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 210 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 added, '^I have thought it over. I have 
 nothing to say, and I believe I can promise 
 positively that I never shall say anything. 
 Will you go out with me ? " 
 
 She had gained the battle. Battles, how- 
 ever, leave hurts behind them, and Claire was 
 sorely wounded. She had decided ; her resolu- 
 tion did not falter, even for an instant ; she was 
 absolutely determined to bear the situation in 
 which she found herself; but the strain never 
 left her ; she was pursued everywhere by a 
 mixture of feelings which not only pained her, 
 but frightened her as well. She accused herself 
 of suspecting and mistrusting her aunt ; it 
 seemed to her a crime to do so ; but struggle 
 as she would, she could not stifle the voice 
 within her. She told herself a hundred times 
 a-day that it was for her aunt alone to judge 
 what she would say or not say ; but she was 
 afflicted by the thought that the tender con- 
 fidence which had so long existed between 
 them had ceased to be complete. She resist- 
 ed inflexibly the temptation to seek out the 
 truth, but she was unable with all her vigour 
 to crush the idea that she had a right to know 
 it. She was certain she could prove, in the
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 211 
 
 distress which had come upon her, that she 
 had acquired definitive mastery over her will; 
 but she recognised, none the less, that the 
 ejffort she was called upon to make would test 
 her force to its utmost limit. 
 
 Harriet Brandon, too, was much affected. 
 She lived in constant fear, either that Claire, 
 notwithstanding her voluntary promise, would 
 ask questions, or that some stranger would 
 reveal the whole tale. She longed to get away 
 from London ; but she did not dare to avow 
 her wish to Claire, lest she should arouse still 
 more suspicions. 
 
 They suffered, secretly and silently, side by 
 side, from fear of the situation, and of each other. 
 
 At last, when some weeks had passed, 
 Madame Valona came to tell them she was 
 leaving for Ryde, and that she wanted them 
 to accompany her. 
 
 Both the aunt and the niece, for different 
 reasons, found relief in the prospect of going 
 elsewhere. Harriet Brandon fancied that, out 
 of London, there would be less danger of tale- 
 bearing. Claire hoped that change of scene 
 migfht brinof her changfe of thouo-ht.
 
 212 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The life at Eyde was new to them, occupied 
 them, and, to a certain extent, tranquillised 
 them. They found several friends, sailed about 
 and were amused. The painful impressions 
 they had brought from London became less 
 acute ; they had frequent moments of forget- 
 fulness, and they would have been almost con- 
 tent again, if a mishap had not occurred which 
 stopped their pleasure for a while. In getting 
 out of a boat Harriet Brandon slipped on the 
 landing-steps, sprained her ankle, and had to 
 lie down for a fortnight. 
 
 It was the first time Claire had occasion 
 to nurse her aunt. In her inexperience the 
 case appeared to her very grave, and, for 
 forty-eight hours, she refused to leave the 
 room. Preoccupations about the secret van- 
 ished from her thoughts, and were replaced by
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 213 
 
 anxiety for her aunt's health. The doctor 
 assured her, in vain, that a sprain is not mor- 
 tal, and that she could go for a stroll without 
 any fear that she would find her aunt dead on 
 her return. Finally, however, she was per- 
 suaded to go each day with Madame Yalona 
 for a short walk, and as she liked to look at 
 water and ships, she always went to the pier. 
 
 During one of these walks she became aware 
 that she was followed by a man who looked at 
 her with undisguised interest. She turned 
 away from him, as much as she could without 
 appearing to be conscious of his presence ; but 
 she saw that he was middle-aged, good-look- 
 ing, gentlemanly, and that he wore yachting 
 clothes. 
 
 The next day he was there again, and he 
 walked behind her and around her so persist- 
 ently, and was so evidently struck by her, that 
 Madame Yalona observed it, and said, laugh- 
 ingly, " My dear, you have made a conquest." 
 
 Claire had been accustomed to conquests 
 since her childhood, and regarded them with 
 indifference. No man had ever made the faint- 
 est mark upon her heart. This new admirer 
 vexed her, and even, indeed, disgusted her a
 
 214 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 little, for she had an instinctive dislike to out- 
 door homage provoked by nothing but her 
 personal appearance. She was not displeased 
 to awaken sympathy by talk, but physical 
 admiration had no value in her eyes. She 
 was therefore offended by the attention she 
 had excited, and begged Madame Valona to 
 return home in order to escape from it. 
 
 But each time she went out the same thing 
 happened, and Madame Valona teased her 
 about it, as if it were a serious matter. She 
 said to Harriet Brandon, " The man is quite 
 in love, I assure you. If Claire does not 
 object to a husband of fifty, here is an oppor- 
 tunity for her. He looks miserable ; I am 
 sure his peace is destroyed ; it would be merci- 
 ful to take him. I do not altogether like his 
 expression, but he is certainly a gentleman. 
 Only he is always alone, and seems to know 
 nobody, which is odd." 
 
 *' It is irritating and insultinsf," exclaimed 
 Claire. " I wish he would go away. He is 
 beginning to spoil my stay here." 
 
 The man did not go away ; he continued 
 his operations ; so Claire ceased to take her 
 exercise on the pier, and walked elsewhere.
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 215 
 
 By the time Harriet Brandon was able to be 
 lifted into a bath-chair, the matter had been 
 forgotten, and they all went again together 
 to the pier, as a matter of course. 
 
 They had got about half-way down it when 
 Madame Valona cried, with much amusement, 
 " Why, Claire, here he is again ! Miss Bran- 
 don, look ! This man coming towards us alone, 
 in blue, is Claire's adorer." 
 
 Harriet Brandon had been pulled down by 
 her enforced stay indoors, and was not in her 
 habitual state of energy ; she was weak and 
 nervous, and turned her head with mere lan- 
 guid curiosity. But the instant she caught 
 sight of the person who was approaching, a 
 change came over her, so violent, so abrupt, 
 so startling, that Claire and Madame Valona 
 sprang to her in alarm, wondering what could 
 possibly be the matter. She had seized the 
 sides of the chair with her two hands, with a 
 wild effort had lifted herself half standing, and 
 breathless, with locked lips and straining eyes, 
 was staring, as if horror-struck, at the stranger. 
 Suddenly she turned white and faint ; her 
 mouth opened convulsively ; her arms gave 
 way ; and, with a low moan, she fell back
 
 216 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 heavily in the chair. Drops of perspiration 
 burst out on her forehead ; her eyes closed ; 
 she made a feeble, spasmodic motion with her 
 hands, as if to thrust away an odious object; 
 she muttered, half inaudibly, " George ! " 
 And then her head sank backwards, her arms 
 dropped down, and she swooned away. 
 
 Claire had scarcely heard the name, but she 
 felt, instinctively, from the effect produced upon 
 her aunt, that the stranger must be George 
 Brandon. 
 
 If she had had any doubts about his iden- 
 tity, they would have been removed at once ; 
 for as, in anxious excitement, she hung over 
 her aunt^ untied her bonnet - strings, and 
 pulled off her gloves, in order to chafe her 
 hands, he pushed through the small crowd that 
 began instantly to gather, and exclaimed, with 
 the clearest signs of agitation and stupefaction, 
 " What ! . . . You ! ... Can you be ... ? 
 Are you . . . ^ You ! Good God ! " And, 
 in bewilderment and dismay, he stood and 
 gazed alternately at Claire and at the uncon- 
 scious Harriet Brandon. 
 
 For some seconds Claire, in the intensity 
 of her absorption, seemed to be ignorant of
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 217 
 
 his presence ; but suddenly she dropped her 
 aunt's hands, faced vehemently round, ad- 
 vanced a step towards him, looked full at 
 him Tvdth an expression of such aversion that 
 he shivered under it, made a movement as 
 if to speak, but checked it, and turning has- 
 tily to the man who drew the chair, cried, 
 " Home, home ! " 
 
 On the way back Harriet Brandon opened 
 her eyes, and by the time they reached Ma- 
 dame Valona's house she had recovered con- 
 sciousness, and tried, feebly, to ask questions. 
 
 " Where is he ? " were the first words she 
 uttered. 
 
 And then she said, " Oh, Claire, I have seen 
 him ! I feel so ill." 
 
 She was got to bed as quickly as possible, 
 but as the shock was moral, it was decided 
 that the doctor should not be sent for unless, 
 later on, medical aid should evidently become 
 necessary. 
 
 Fortunately she calmed down fast, and at 
 the end of an hour said to Claire, "This is 
 what I feared when we decided to come to 
 England. I told you I could not meet him. 
 I cannot risk a repetition of it. It seems to
 
 218 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 me that it would kill me. I should like to 
 go abroad again at once." 
 
 '' Yes, dearest Tatte," said Claire. '' We 
 will go abroad again. We will talk about it 
 to-morrow, when you are quite well. Cer- 
 tainly we will go. We will do whatever you 
 wish." 
 
 After a while Harriet Brandon fell asleep, 
 and then Madame Yalona and Claire left her 
 bedside, and went to the garden together. 
 
 As soon as they were far enough from the 
 house to be out of hearing, Claire said, " Dear 
 Madame Yalona, let me ask a favour of you. 
 Never speak to me about all this. I do not 
 wish to discuss it. I am sure I can count on 
 your kind silence." 
 
 As Madame Yalona had no reason for sup- 
 posing that Claire could be ignorant of her 
 own history, these words were taken by her 
 to mean, simply, that she shrank from talking 
 of the painful position in which she had been 
 placed by the trial. Nothing could be more 
 natural, so Madame Yalona answered, " Cer- 
 tainly, my dear child, I will never mention the 
 subject to you." And then they talked, as best 
 they could, of indifferent matters.
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 219 
 
 Later in the day Madame Yalona found her- 
 self alone with Harriet Brandon. She thouo-ht 
 it right to profit by the opportunity to state 
 that she had become acquainted with the whole 
 story through Mrs Gordon, and that, conse- 
 quently, Harriet Brandon could count upon 
 her full and special sympathies, and might, if 
 that were any comfort, speak openly to her. 
 
 Miss Brandon took her hand, thanked her 
 warmly, and said it was a relief to her to 
 learn this, because it enabled them to talk 
 unreservedly together. And then she went 
 on to say, '* I must warn you that Claire 
 knows nothing, absolutely nothing, beyond the 
 mere fact that the estate went to my brother, 
 instead of herself, and that that is why I will 
 not see him. It has been — and still is — my 
 unceasing preoccupation to keep her in igno- 
 rance of the effects of the trial on her personal 
 position. Never must she know the truth.'' 
 
 '' I am, indeed, surprised at what you tell 
 me," replied Madame Yalona. " I took it for 
 granted that she knew all. And, just now, 
 when she begged me to say nothing to her, I 
 thought, of course, that she desired to avoid a 
 subject that must be painful to her."
 
 220 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 " She asked you to tell her nothing ? " ex- 
 claimed Harriet Brandon. " Ah, there is my 
 noble Claire again ! Of course suspicions have 
 been aroused in her, but she promised me, 
 voluntarily, that she would make no attempt 
 to discover the truth. And she keeps her 
 promise by entreating you to tell her nothing ! 
 What a magnificent character she has ! " 
 
 " But really, really, is this wise '? " asked 
 Madame Valona. '* Others may be less pru- 
 dent than I am. An accident may teach her 
 all, and what then ? It seems to me that, in con- 
 cealing from her the reality of her situation, you 
 may be creating grave difficulties for the future." 
 
 " She must not — must not — know it ! " cried 
 Harriet Brandon. " Never — never ! She 
 knows too much already ; but she is still igno- 
 rant of the horrible declaration of illegitimacy. 
 I would give my life to prevent her ever learn- 
 ing it." 
 
 '' Well, in so very delicate a matter, it is for 
 you alone to judge. I will say no more. My 
 affection for Claire makes me wish for nothing 
 but her happiness and good, and you may be 
 certain that I will do everything in my power 
 to assist you in promoting them."
 
 CLAIRE BRA^'DON. 221 
 
 Harriet Brandon had a quiet night, was 
 fairly well next morning, was able to get up, 
 and was wheeled in an arm-chair into a little 
 boudoir on the same floor. 
 
 After lunch, as they were sitting together 
 chatting almost gaily, a servant came in to say 
 that a gentleman, who did not give his name, 
 had called to see Miss Brandon, and was wait- 
 ing in the drawing-room. 
 
 The announcement fell amongst them like a 
 bursting shell. Though no name was given, a 
 name rose instantly in all their hearts. How 
 could he dare to come ? They glanced with 
 terror at each other. 
 
 Harriet Brandon cried, hysterically, "No, 
 no ! oh no 1 " 
 
 Madame Valona told the servant that Miss 
 Brandon was unwell, and could receive no one. 
 
 And then they looked again at each other, 
 in apprehension and dismay, wondering what 
 would happen next. But no one spoke. 
 
 A minute later the footman came up again 
 with a letter. It was addressed to Miss Bran- 
 don, and contained these words : " As I ex- 
 pect you will decline to see me I write this 
 beforehand, to entreat you to permit me to say
 
 222 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 a few words to you. I beg you most earnestly 
 not to refuse, for I have to speak to you of 
 your niece." 
 
 When Harriet Brandon had read the letter 
 she handed it, in silence, to Madame Yalona, 
 who, after she had seen its contents, told the 
 servant to go away, and to come back in five 
 minutes for the answer. 
 
 Then Claire read the letter ; and she and 
 Madame Yalona went to Harriet Brandon's 
 side, and stood there watching her and wait- 
 ing anxiously. 
 
 She shut her eyes ; but the movements of 
 her face showed how deeply agitated she was. 
 At last she spoke, tremblingly. 
 
 ^' He says it is about Claire ! What can it 
 be '? But ... if it concerns her . . . have 
 I the right to refuse '? Ought I not to face 
 him ? You know . . . how the idea of meet- 
 ing him has terrified me . . . for seventeen 
 years. But . . . now ... if it is about 
 Claire ... I cannot say no. I must not 
 think any longer of myself It seems to me 
 that I am bound to see him . . . whatever it 
 may cost me." 
 
 " But, my dear friend," put in Madame
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 223 
 
 Yalona, " really you are not in a condition to 
 go through a painful scene. You are still very 
 unwell. It will make you ill. Would you 
 not prefer that I should see him^ and hear 
 what he has to say 'i " 
 
 " Thank you, thank you. Xo. I am sure 
 it is my duty. I feel it more and more. In- 
 stinct tells me so. What can he have to tell 
 me about Claire ? I must learn that. Yes, 
 yes, let me see him at once and get it over. 
 At once ... at once ... so that I may 
 know. . . . Delay would be too trying to me.'' 
 
 Claire did not attempt to utter a word. She 
 kissed her aunt and left the room. 
 
 Madame Valona turned Harriet Brandon's 
 arm-chair into a convenient position, pressed 
 her hand, rang the bell, told the servant to ask 
 the gentleman to come up, and went away. 
 
 Harriet Brandon made an effort to concen- 
 trate all the resolution and all the courage of 
 her nature, and fixed her eyes on the door. 
 
 Her brother entered. Their eyes met. 
 
 That sino'le look sufficed to show Harriet 
 
 o 
 
 Brandon that he was afraid of her. In one 
 second her apprehensions disappeared. She 
 felt she was mistress of the situation.
 
 224 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 She pointed silently to a chair in front of 
 her. But he did not sit down. He looked 
 again at her, almost timidly, and said, " I am 
 grateful to you for allowing me to see you. I 
 have little to say, but I have long wished to 
 say it; and when you have heard it, I think 
 you will recognise that I have a sufficient 
 motive for intruding on you. 
 
 "The reasons which led me to deny that 
 Charles was married, did not endure. As 
 time passed on, I began, in my solitude, to 
 doubt the justice of my acts. I finished by 
 seeing clearly that I had done wrong — very 
 wrong. But the wrong had been effected 
 under conditions of such a nature that I was 
 powerless to repair it, even in part, without 
 your aid. I became devoured by self-reproach, 
 and I confess to you that I went to Venice 
 in the hope of meeting you in order to try 
 to tell you this. On getting there J. learnt 
 that you had just gone suddenly away, and 
 I was convinced that you had left on purpose 
 to avoid me. That discouraged me. I made 
 no further attempt to approach you, and 
 notwithstanding the suffering and remorse in 
 which I live, I should probably have aban-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDON. 225 
 
 doned the idea of try Id g to tell you the 
 truth, if hazard — a strange and very painful 
 hazard — had not brought us together yester- 
 day. I inquired where you were staying, 
 and I have come. 
 
 " I dare not speak to you of my brother's 
 child. In my sadness she appeared to me, 
 suddenly, as a light on my lonely way. I did 
 not know — I could not know — who she was. 
 
 "Now that I do know, and now that, at 
 last, I have an opportunity of telling you 
 what I feel and what I suffer, I am, if 
 possible, even more desirous than before to 
 obtain your assistance in order to undo the 
 wrong that I have done to my brother and 
 ... to his child. Now that I have seen her, 
 now that I have felt — in my ignorance of the 
 relationship between us — what that child is 
 capable of inspiring, it is impossible for me 
 to continue in the position in which I have 
 been placed towards her. 
 
 " I have to say that I wish to recognise 
 her as my brother's daughter . . . with all 
 the consequences of recognition." And then 
 he sat down, heavily and wearily, to listen 
 to his sister's answer. 
 
 VOL. L p
 
 226 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Harriet Brandon said, speaking slowly, but 
 with no hesitation— " So this is what you 
 wished to say to me about her ! This ! For 
 motives of your own, you denied the mar- 
 riage, and got the child declared to be . . . 
 I cannot say what. For motives of your own 
 you now want, as you say, to undo your 
 work. In neither case have you been influ- 
 enced by any consideration for the child or 
 for me ; you have cared for yourself alone. 
 
 '' I recognise that your second motives seem 
 somewhat less unworthy than your first ones ; 
 but they are both equally selfish. You 
 w^anted money then, and you disgraced us 
 all in order to obtain it. You want a 
 quiet conscience now, and you propose that 
 I should help you to perform an impos- 
 sibility, in order that you may obtain that 
 too. 
 
 " As you have been a barrister, I presume 
 you know enough of law to be aware that 
 the verdict which declared there was no 
 proof of Charles's marriage can only be re- 
 versed by producing that proof. We have 
 no more proof now than we had then. So 
 nothing can be changed. Claire must remain
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 227 
 
 . . . what you have made her. And you, on 
 your side, roust remain with your conscience 
 and your remorse — if really you feel either. 
 You have done your work too perfectly for 
 it to be possible to efface it. 
 
 '• I refuse any further communication with 
 you, and I call upon you to stand out of our 
 road and to leave me to obtain for Claire, so 
 far as may be in my power, the place which 
 you have done your utmost to take from 
 her. 
 
 " I told you when last I saw you, all those 
 years ago, when you refused the supplications 
 I addressed to you on my knees — do you 
 remember, George 1^1 told you the day of 
 punishment would, come. You say it came 
 long ago. It will be a day without an end, 
 for no end can now be put to it. 
 
 " You have seen Claire. You know now 
 who it is that you have so foully wronged. 
 
 " I cannot forgive you. The rest is between 
 God and yourself. 
 
 *' I beg you to leave me. I have no more 
 to say." 
 
 George Brandon rose. He said, with every 
 appearance of deep distress — " You tell me it is
 
 228 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 idle for me to make proposals to you, because 
 they cannot be carried into effect. It is pre- 
 cisely because that is true that I needed your 
 assistance in order to do the best I could. 
 Alone, I could do nothing at all ; but if you 
 had consented to help me, we two together 
 might have managed a good deal. My life 
 has been melancholy and weary ; I have lived 
 apart with my repentance ; but I have found 
 encouragement, thus far, in the hope that 
 some day I might make amends. Henceforth 
 I can hope nothing. I can only leave Hurley 
 to her when I die. Still, I remain at your 
 disposal for anything I can do during my 
 life. When you want me, I shall be ready. 
 Meanwhile I shall suffer more than ever — for, 
 now ... I know her." 
 
 " I shall never want you," replied Harriet 
 Brandon. " The utmost you are able to do 
 for Claire is to bring her back the money you 
 took from her. And that is precisely what 
 she does not need. What she does need is 
 her father's name — she bears mine, remember, 
 not his — and it is beyond your power to re- 
 store that to her. Before you deprived her 
 of it, I implored you to take the money, but
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 229 
 
 to leave her the name. You refused. She 
 has to bear the consequences. Do you pre- 
 tend that you ought not to bear them too ? 
 Live with your remorse, and leave your vic- 
 tims in peace. You need not have disturbed 
 me for such a communication as this." 
 
 She pointed to the door. 
 
 Gloomily and slowly, he obeyed her signal. 
 The door closed behind him. 
 
 Claire and Madame Yalona were listening 
 together, in deep anxiety, for the departure 
 of George Brandon. As soon as they had 
 heard him go, they ran to Harriet Brandon. 
 
 They found her pale, grave, exhausted, but 
 calm and self-possessed. 
 
 She tried to smile at Claire, who knelt at 
 her side and held her hands. Tears gathered 
 in her eyes ; but they were tears of consola- 
 tion, not of sorrow, for she felt that the situ- 
 ation had suddenly changed, and that a few 
 minutes had sufficed to sweep away from her 
 the fear of her brother which had weighed her 
 down for so many years. 
 
 She said, — " I am glad I saw him. I shall 
 never see him again, but I am no longer 
 afraid of him. He wanted to bring about a
 
 230 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 reconciliation. That cannot be. I was very 
 right — very right — to see him. But, thank 
 God, it is over. I feel very nervous and very 
 tired — and yet, much relieved. How strange 
 it is that the very thing we fear most should 
 turn out, sometimes, to be an advantage to 
 us rather than a pain ! " 
 
 As soon as Claire could leave her aunt, she 
 set herself to review the situation; but she 
 could extract no new suspicions from her 
 uncle's conduct. Instinct told her that there 
 must be something she did not know ; but, so 
 far, facts had not confirmed the instinct. She 
 blamed herself once more for entertaining any 
 suspicions at all, and told herself it was un- 
 worthy of her to doubt. Yet argument did 
 not drive out her hesitations, neither did reason 
 bring back her confidence. There was, assur- 
 edly, a mystery. 
 
 Her doubts did not, however, make her 
 unhappy ; they did not even preoccupy her 
 gravely. The elasticity of her nature, the 
 variety of her occupations, her rare power of 
 will, combined to enable her to drive away 
 disagreeable thoughts, and she managed to 
 preserve a steady control over suspicions
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 231 
 
 which would have destroyed the peace of any 
 character less disciplined and less valiant than 
 her own. 
 
 She had determined to bear the burden 
 which had fallen on her — to bear it uncom- 
 plainingly and unflinchingly, — and, taking 
 thino^s together, it seemed to her that what 
 had just occurred rendered the task a little 
 less severe. 
 
 On one point only there had come an addi- 
 tion to her troubles. George Brandon was 
 now a reality to her. He had ceased to be a 
 mere name. She had come to know him as 
 a living man, and she remembered him with 
 such intense repugnance that she feared to 
 leave the house lest she should meet him 
 again. It was therefore an immense relief 
 to her, as well as to her aunt, to learn from 
 M. Valona, who had inquired at the club, 
 that George Brandon had left in his yacht for 
 the coast of Ireland. 
 
 And then they had a period of peace, and 
 almost of pleasure. Harriet Brandon had re- 
 covered. Kegatta time had come. The wea- 
 ther was superb. The days were full of the 
 outdoor amusements which are special to Eng-
 
 232 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 land, and Claire was amused by the newness 
 of the life. 
 
 On a wild night, off Cape Clear, a schooner 
 yacht, with topmasts struck, and three reefs 
 down in her lower sails, was staggering and 
 straining in the sea - way. The wind blew 
 almost a full gale, and the darkness seemed to 
 add intensity to the storm. Leaning on the 
 weather-rail was a man — alone — his arm round 
 a backstay, to steady him. Drenched with 
 the spray and rain, half blinded by the squally 
 gusts, but heedless, and indeed unconscious 
 of it all, the man stood there in absorbing 
 thought. There was a tempest within him 
 as fierce as the tempest without, for he was 
 torn with doubt whether it was worth his 
 while to live, or whether it would not be better 
 for him to go overboard into the black waves 
 and have done with pain. 
 
 Inquiries of that sort rarely produce sui- 
 cide. Hesitation leads almost always to the 
 maintenance of life. Or, if it does termi- 
 nate finally in wilful death, it is only after 
 a long struggle and a steady accumulation 
 of motives.
 
 CLAIRE BRAKDOX. 233 
 
 The man — George Brandon — did not go 
 overboard. It seemed to liim, on that occa- 
 sion, that anguish was preferable to extinction. 
 He did not put the matter to himself in those 
 terms, but in effect he arrived at that result. 
 
 And yet George Brandon was suffering 
 almost in supportably. His case was simple, 
 and perhaps not rare. Born with a purely 
 selfish, concentrated nature and a calculating 
 intelligence, cold, self-contained, indifferent to 
 the sorrow of others, he had, from his very 
 boyhood, regarded money as the supreme good. 
 To get it, he had broken with his sister, had 
 thrown dishonour on his name, and had offend- 
 ed public opinion. At first he felt nothing of 
 all this. He had won ; he had become rich; and 
 for a time the realisation of his dream delio-hted 
 him, and sufiiced to blind him to all else. But 
 as the years passed on, he began by degrees to 
 lose faith in his work. Slowly he was led 
 to recognise that he had employed excessive 
 means, and to ask himself whether the result 
 he had achieved was sufficient after all to jus- 
 tify those means. Gradually his misgivings 
 grew more and more grave ; they acquired 
 indeed such weight, that at last they domi-
 
 234 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 nated his whole existence, and forced him to 
 perceive that he had effected an ill-judged 
 bargain, and that money had not brought him 
 satisfactions which rendered it worth the price 
 he had thought fit to pay for it. When he 
 was poor, he made, like many others, the mis- 
 take of imagining that money was the one 
 need. But when he had got money, he dis- 
 covered — like many others also — that by itself 
 it was not enough. 
 
 As his mind was essentially analytical and 
 critical — like most calculating minds — it led 
 him, in his solitude, to pass his time in exam- 
 ination of his acts, his motives, and his posi- 
 tion. From that examination there had grown 
 up two consequences — the first, a ceaseless 
 anger against himself for the error he saw he 
 had committed ; the second, a strange produc- 
 tion of remorse. 
 
 He had been utterly, totally callous. No 
 nature had ever been more insensible than his 
 either to moral considerations, to abstract duty, 
 to family ties, or to affections of any kind. 
 He had cared nothing, absolutely nothing, for 
 anything but money, and to obtain it, all 
 means had appeared to him to be good and fit,
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 235 
 
 provided only they were not punishable by 
 law. Accustomed to live alone, he had 
 attached no value to opinion. He wanted no 
 one, so he had feared no one. The accumu- 
 lation of these dispositions had made it seem 
 to him quite natural to deny his brother's 
 marriage, and to illegitimise his brother's 
 child. 
 
 And yet all this, which had once appeared 
 so simple and so reasonable, had slowly 
 changed its aspect. A voice had arisen 
 within him, a voice of which the sound was 
 new to him, but of which he recognised the 
 nature, for he had been told of it in childhood, 
 and he knew that its name was — Conscience. 
 
 In vain he tried to close his ears to it ; in 
 vain he argued and discussed with it ; in vain 
 his nature made an effort to drown the new- 
 born cries by shouting louder still. The 
 accusing tones rose steadily in power ; they 
 echoed through him ; they rang around him ; 
 they deafened him ; they exhausted him ; and, 
 finally, they overwhelmed him. Worn and 
 beaten in the strife, he suddenly gave way. 
 The battle was over. Conscience had got him 
 for her prey.
 
 236 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 When once remorse had completely seized 
 him, when once he saw that he could not 
 escape, he tried, with the coolness of his 
 temperament, to make the best of it. He 
 told himself that, as he had evidently to live 
 with remorse, it was his interest to make re- 
 morse as little disagreeable as possible. And 
 then it occurred to him that he would play 
 a clever trick on Conscience if he proposed 
 to recognise Claire as his brother's daughter. 
 With that idea he went to Venice, expecting 
 that he would find his sister there, and that 
 she would listen with satisfaction to his offers. 
 
 When the attempt had failed, he told his 
 conscience he had done his utmost, and that 
 he deserved a respite. But Conscience refused 
 to be cheated in that fashion, and, to punish 
 the subterfuge, proceeded to torture him even 
 more cruelly than before. 
 
 And so George Brandon's life passed on, in 
 bitterness and reproach, until one day, upon 
 the pier at Ryde, he saw a girl. 
 
 That girl stirred up in him a strange abrupt 
 emotion. At his first sight of her he trembled, 
 for he felt, instinctively and irresistibly, that 
 between him and her there was a bond. He
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 237 
 
 told himself it "u^as ridiculous to think so ; he 
 called the common-sense of which he was so 
 proud, to help him ; but he could not master 
 his inexplicable sensations, and was unable to 
 drive out the intuition that there was a mys- 
 terious link between them. And to this un- 
 accountable sentiment of affinity there was 
 added an admiration which frightened him, 
 for it had been one of the rules of his life to 
 despise women. Her type was completely 
 new to him ; her wonderful distinction dazzled 
 him ; the regal movements of her head en- 
 thralled him. He did his utmost to free him- 
 self from the spell she cast upon him ; but, 
 despite his efforts, it wound itself round him 
 more and more each day, until at last, in his 
 excitement, he imagined, suddenly, that fate 
 had placed her on his road to lighten his load 
 of care. From that instant he saw in her a 
 revelation of purity and of dignity, an incar- 
 nation of lofty qualities which, in the revulsion 
 of his sjDirit, he grew to reverence from afar. 
 For the first time he understood the stately 
 calm of duty done, a calm that he had never 
 known. Each day she seemed to him more 
 noble, more imposing. Each day the sight of
 
 238 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 her conveyed to him a clearer estimate of his 
 fall, a more definite perception of the truth 
 which he had lost, and the vague beginning 
 of a glimmering hope that he might regain it. 
 
 And then he learnt, with crushing anguish, 
 that this symbolic figure, this type of lofty 
 attributes, this conception of an imaginary 
 saviour, was Claire — his brother's child, to 
 whom he had done that grievous wrong. And 
 he had seen that, when she knew who he was, 
 she had cast upon him a look of horror. 
 
 Finally, he had thrust himself upon his 
 sister, and she had refused to listen to his 
 proposals. 
 
 Those were the reasons why, that night, 
 amidst the storm, feeling that he could never 
 be forgiven, he gazed at the black waters and- 
 asked them if they could give him rest.
 
 239 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 At the end of August the Valonas quitted 
 Ryde, and the Brandons found themselves 
 once more without a destination. The ques- 
 tion of a home was still unsettled. They had, 
 however, been long enough in England to be 
 able to measure its qualities and its defects 
 as a resting-place, and there was no reason for 
 delaying a decision, so far as the principle was 
 concerned. The selection of the particular 
 spot was another matter ; but if once they 
 made up their minds to stop in England, the 
 larger half of the difficulty would be solved. 
 Claire liked England, English ways and Eng- 
 lish people, not with the blind prejudice of 
 ignorant habit, but as a consequence of ex- 
 perience and comparison. She had tried 
 earnestly to become English, and had to a
 
 240 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 great extent succeeded. So she desired to 
 settle down in England. 
 
 Her aunt, however, would say neither no 
 nor yes. The reiterated questions of Claire 
 and the Valonas failed to extract an answer 
 from her. At the bottom of her heart she 
 wanted to go back to Venice, for the double 
 reason that life there had pleased her and that 
 she feared England almost more than ever 
 because of the risks of tale-bearing. Further- 
 more, she was growing nervous, was losing her 
 old stubbornness, and under the combined in- 
 fluence of changed conditions of existence and 
 of the infinite afl'ection which had arisen in 
 her, was drifting by reaction into gentleness. 
 She still had impulses, but they were rare, 
 and their efi'ects did not last. She was 
 beginning to mistrust herself, and to rely 
 on Claire. So, as Claire insisted always on 
 leaving decision to her aunt alone, it became 
 more and more difiicult to reach any decision 
 at all. 
 
 The result was that they chose no home, and 
 that they found themselves, without knowing 
 why, at Lucerne in September and on the 
 Italian lakes in October. They travelled thence
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 241 
 
 clown Italy to Sicily, got to Tunis and Algeria, 
 spent the winter there, and reached Paris, once 
 more, in April. 
 
 The Marquise d'Heristal and M. de Morvan 
 greeted them ^4th warm aflfection, but attacked 
 the spirit of vagrancy which seemed to domi- 
 nate them, and declared that they really ought 
 to choose a home, if it were only to be able to 
 give their friends an address to which they 
 could send letters. 
 
 Harriet Brandon defended herself laughingly 
 against the accusation of vagabondage, and 
 argued that, even if it were true, there was a 
 20od deal to be said in favour of a nomadic 
 life. She hated the worries of housekeeping. 
 She pretended there is a delightful sense of 
 freedom in dwelling under tents. She quoted 
 the Spanish gipsy proverb (which she had 
 learnt from her courier in Algeria), '•' The 
 doer that trots about finds a bone." She 
 made the utmost of a bad case, but ad- 
 mitted, of course, that some day they would 
 settle somewhere. 
 
 For the moment, however, they were in 
 Paris, and in the middle of the season there. 
 So Madame d'Heristal asked Claire if she 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 still wanted to see society ; and on her an- 
 swering that she did particularly wish to see 
 it, the Marquise said, " Well, my dear child, 
 there are no objections this time ; you are old 
 enough now to show yourself ; I will see about it 
 at once. Only, remember what I have already 
 told you. Do not expect too much. Paris no 
 longer deserves its former reputation of bril- 
 liancy and grace. Spend a couple of months 
 here by all means ; but do it solely to collect 
 experience, and not with any notion that you 
 are going to be enchanted by ' contact ' with 
 the French. We are a decaying race ; start 
 with that conviction, and you will not be dis- 
 appointed. The Duchess de Saintes, whom 
 you met the first time you dined with me, 
 gives a ball to-morrow. You shall make your 
 appearance there. I will tell her I shall bring 
 
 you." 
 
 The next evening M. de Morvan took the 
 Brandons to the opera, and they did not reach 
 the ball till nearly midnight. They found the 
 rooms full, and, to Claire's astonishment, all 
 the mothers were sitting in a row against the 
 walls, and all the daughters in another row 
 in front of their respective mothers. To her
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 243 
 
 question as to tlie motive of this rectilineal 
 arrangement, M. de Morvan answered that in 
 France, in proper society, no young lady is 
 permitted to stray out of her mother's sight, 
 unless it be for a special five minutes to get 
 some lemonade. Wandering with a partner 
 would constitute, in French eyes, an abomina- 
 tion ; and furthermore, would be most danger- 
 ous to the youno; gentleman who lent himself 
 to it, for he might find himself dragged into 
 the unspeakable folly — utterly unworthy of a 
 Frenchman — of marriao;e with a oirl who has 
 no money. 
 
 Claire strolled through the rooms on the arm 
 of M. de Morvan (at his age there was no im- 
 propriety in the act). Her striking distinction 
 produced a marked efi'ect. Everybody asked 
 who she was, and, of course, everybody in- 
 quired immediately about her fortune. Within 
 ten minutes of her entrance the rumour spread 
 that she was very rich, and then the vultures 
 rushed upon the prey : all the young gentle- 
 men came up in a column, got themselves 
 presented by the Duchess de Saintes, and 
 asked for dances, with a view to immediate 
 matrimony.
 
 244 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 The one who managed to get up first en- 
 deavoured to utilise the start he had obtained, 
 by remarking, with unctuous bows and osten- 
 tatious smiles, that it was an honour which 
 touched him surpassingly to be the first 
 partner of a young lady destined to produce 
 an inefiaceable impression on all who met 
 her. He ventured even on the extravagant 
 act of compromising his future altogether, 
 by asking Claire to deign to dance with him 
 again the next night at another ball to which 
 Madame d'Heristal was to take her. 
 
 The second, third, and fourth repeated the 
 same language, more or less identically. The 
 fifth, in the hope of pulling up lost time, went 
 so far as to speak of his father's chateau in 
 Dauphine as a most agreeable residence ; and 
 then Claire thought she had had enough of it, 
 and asked her aunt to take her home. 
 
 When they said good-night to the Duchess, 
 the latter whispered to Harriet Brandon — 
 '^AU the mothers are coming to you to ask 
 for her. They think she has got a million 
 a -year. Prepare yourself. There will be 
 sixty proposals before the week is out." 
 
 The next day at three o'clock, as Harriet
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 245 
 
 Brandon and Claire were chattins: too-etlier, 
 the door opened and the Countess de Leys 
 was announced. 
 
 A tall, ugly woman came in, scattering 
 enthusiastic smiles. She held out her hand 
 with overladen joy, and exclaimed — "Dear 
 madame, I had the pleasure — the great pleasure 
 — of meeting you in September at Lucerne. 
 We stayed together at the Hotel National. 
 Our short acquaintance made such a delightful 
 impression on me that when I heard this morn- 
 ing from my sister, the Countess de Treillezet 
 — who met you last night at the ball of the 
 Duchess de Saintes — that you were here, I 
 ventured to indulge the hope that you would 
 permit me to come to see you." And then she 
 smiled impassionedly, as if she had never 
 known true happiness before, turned to Claire 
 and added — ''As for you, mademoiselle, 
 all Paris is talking of you. Never was there 
 such a sensation. Your debiU is an event. 
 Allow me to congratulate you on the bril- 
 liancy of your victory. Like Hannibal — or 
 was it Peter the Great '? — you have come, 
 you have been seen, and we have been con- 
 quered."
 
 246 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Harriet Brandon had listened to all this 
 with a mixture of amusement, bewilderment, 
 and irritation. But she answered courteously 
 — ^' I am very pleased to see you again. 
 Have you been long in Paris ? " 
 
 *' No — only a few weeks. My home is in 
 Anjou. I am here now on a visit to my 
 sister ; and it is, in part, because of my sister 
 that I have hastened to come to you to-day. 
 She has indeed intrusted me with a mission 
 to you ... a mission which I am very anxious 
 to discharge, but which . . . " — here she 
 looked, with another burnished smile, at 
 Claire — '' . . . which needs that I should beg 
 the favour of a few moments' conversation 
 with yourself alone." 
 
 Claire stood up, threw her head back with 
 the movement that was habitual to her when 
 she decided anything, raised her eyebrows, 
 bit her lips to prevent herself from laughing, 
 bowed slightly to Madame de Leys, and left 
 the room. 
 
 *' What a manner ! " exclaimed Madame de 
 Leys. ^' How perfectly brought up she is I 
 What honour she does you ! I really cannot 
 admire her sufficiently. Dear Miss Brandon,
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 247 
 
 it is about your most adorable niece that I 
 have come to see you. My sister has a son — 
 an only son. She Tvorships him, and lives for 
 nothino; else but him. He is such an excellent 
 son. He is captain in a regiment of hussars 
 at Lyons. He is thirty-four years old. He 
 is short, but he is distinguished ; and though 
 not exactly handsome, he is considered to be 
 pleasing. He has perfect principles, and is 
 worthy of the most entire confidence. He has, 
 for a soldier^ a good deal of religion. Several 
 excellent marriages have been proposed to him, 
 but he has declined them all, because, like a 
 man of honour, he has determined never to 
 accept a wife unless he loves her. He pos- 
 sesses at present £320 a-year, besides his pay, 
 and, at the death of his mother, he will have 
 £600 a-year more. He has always assured 
 his mother that he has no debts. His mother 
 — my sister — has confided to me the welcome 
 duty of coming to you to inquire, as a neces- 
 sary preliminary, whether a marriage between 
 her son the Count de Treillezet, and made- 
 moiselle your niece, would enter into your 
 views. Of course, I do not at this moment 
 lay before you an official demand. That
 
 248 CLAIKE BRANDON. 
 
 would be premature. The young people must 
 see first whether it is probable that they would 
 like each other . . ." (Here a still more radiant 
 smile passed over the face of Madame de Leys.) 
 " All I seek at this moment is to submit the 
 idea to you, and to ask your impressions." 
 
 Harriet Brandon had stared while this speech 
 was being delivered to her, and stared still 
 more when it was finished. 
 
 '^But . . ." she said, "but . . . really ... I 
 do not quite understand. Excuse me. Is this 
 an offer of marriage for my niece ? " 
 
 *' Certainly, dear madame. At least it is 
 the first step towards it. Feeling, as every- 
 body must feel, after what happened last 
 night, that a number of propositions will be 
 addressed to you at once for the hand of 
 mademoiselle your niece, we were desirous — 
 my sister and I — to profit by the happy 
 accident which has bestowed upon me the 
 charming privilege of knowing you, to present 
 our candidate before any other could come 
 under your notice. The conditions we offer 
 are exceptionally good, and I allow myself to 
 indulge the dream that you will consider them 
 favourably."
 
 CLAIRE BRA^'DOX. 249 
 
 Harriet Brandon was extremely offended by 
 this prodigious coramunication, but that did 
 not prevent her from being amused. *' But, 
 madame/' she exclaimed, " where is this 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 "He is at Lyons," was the reply. ''Of 
 course he will appear at once if we telegraph 
 for him. Meanwhile I can show you his 
 portrait if you like.'' 
 
 '' Then he was not at the ball last night ? '' 
 
 '' Xo j certainly not." 
 
 ^' So, without ha^-ing seen my niece, he pro- 
 poses to marry her ? " 
 
 " Oh no, dear madame ; he does not pro- 
 pose it. That would be quite improper. It 
 is his mother who proposes it for him, through 
 my intermediary. His mother was married 
 in that way. A suggestion was received by 
 her parents from the aunt of a young officer — 
 he was at Lille, that one. It was arranged 
 that he should come up ; that they should 
 go one evening to the circus ; and that she 
 should wear a peacock -blue dress and he a 
 white hat, so that each of them mioht know 
 which was the other. And they looked 
 through opera-glasses and liked each other at
 
 250 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 a distance, and they met a few days later, 
 and money matters were satisfactorily ar- 
 ranged, and they were married, and were 
 very happy until he was killed at Solferino." 
 
 "This way of proceeding is rather new to 
 me," observed Harriet Brandon, trying to look 
 grave. " And I doubt whether my niece will 
 quite like to be married by such a process. 
 She will probably prefer to choose for herself, 
 as English girls usually do. I think we had 
 better let the matter drop." 
 
 "But, dear madame, it is useless to let it 
 drop. It really will not be in your power 
 to let it drop, for all the men will want to 
 marry her," insisted Madame de Leys. '^ We 
 are in France, where marriages are always 
 arranged in that way, and where rich girls 
 receive several offers each week. It is because 
 your niece has a very large fortune ..." 
 
 " My niece has a very large fortune ? . . . " 
 interrupted Harriet Brandon. "My niece 
 has nothing at all, absolutely nothing. Some 
 day she will have what I have, but at present, 
 of her own she has not one franc." 
 
 " She has not one franc ! " exclaimed Ma- 
 dame de Leys, looking very blank. " She has
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 251 
 
 not one franc ! But then . . . are you really 
 quite sure 1 " 
 
 " Well, I suppose I ought to know. If I 
 tell you she has nothing, you may safely 
 believe me." 
 
 *' Oh, in that case, I must, of course, with- 
 draw the proposal. I made it in the supposi- 
 tion that your niece was very rich, and that it 
 would be a desirable marriage for my nephew. 
 He cannot possibly marry a girl who has 
 nothing but expectations." 
 
 "We entirely agree, madame," said Harriet 
 Brandon, rising. " I regret that you should 
 have wasted your valuable time. There will 
 be no advantage in continuing the conver- 
 sation." 
 
 Madame de Leys went away, less smiling 
 and less joyous. She looked, indeed, pro- 
 digiously angry. 
 
 Then Claire was told the story by her aunt, 
 and the two laughed together for an hour. 
 
 During the next few days several other 
 overtures of an analogous nature reached 
 Harriet Brandon. They came in all sorts of 
 ways, directly and indirectly, through men, 
 through women, and through priests. But as
 
 252 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 it got gradually known that Claire had nothing, 
 the offers ceased, the young gentlemen danced 
 with her much less, and society, undeceived, 
 thought her decidedly a mistake. 
 
 No one knew that the secret intention of 
 Harriet Brandon was to give £2000 a-year 
 to Claire if she married. 
 
 In talking over this amusing experience 
 with Madame d'Heristal and M. de Morvan, 
 Harriet Brandon asked them, *' Is it possible 
 that such an astounding proposal as I received 
 from Madame de Leys can be a usual form of 
 action here ? Surely it must be an outrageous 
 impertinence, which was tried with us because 
 we are foreigners. Is it the truth that mar- 
 riages are ever really arranged amongst you in 
 that fashion '? " 
 
 "Of course they are," answered Madame 
 d'Heristal, laughing at Harriet Brandon s in- 
 credulity. " There are dozens of such cases 
 every week. What seems to you to be so 
 extravagant that you imagine it to be a 
 wild exception devised for your special be- 
 wilderment, is a most ordinary daily proceed- 
 ing in France. Naturally, there are other 
 manners, too, of negotiating a marriage ; but
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 253 
 
 this particular way — Madame de Leys's way 
 — is rather a common one. Do not suppose 
 you have had the privilege of encountering a 
 curiosity. Nothing of the sort. Madame de 
 Leys was perfectly exact when she told you 
 that marriages here are arranged in that way." 
 
 *' Then, tell me," went on Harriet Brandon, 
 " does a marriage put together in that fashion 
 ever turn out really well ? It is such a purely 
 commercial transaction that I cannot bring 
 myself to comprehend by what unforeseen 
 means feeling can be introduced into it after- 
 wards. When a man and a woman come 
 together for life after a preliminary financial 
 discussion conducted on their behalf by some- 
 body else — a discussion in which their pockets 
 have counted for everything and their sym- 
 pathies for nothing — there must be small pro- 
 bability, I should think, that they can manage, 
 later on, to love each other, or even to respect 
 each other." 
 
 *' What an utterly false view ! " exclaimed 
 the Marquise. '* My dear, how little you know 
 of the realities of marriage ! It is easy to see 
 that you have not tried it yourself. Why, 
 it is precisely after marriage, when ties and
 
 254 CLAIHE BRANDON. 
 
 interests and habits have grown up, that it 
 becomes natural and easy to feel solid and 
 durable attachment. Love based on fancy is 
 a miserably unreliable sensation compared with 
 friendship based on community of objects." 
 
 " You will tell me next," cried Harriet 
 Brandon, ^' that bitter enemies may become 
 fond friends — if only they get married." 
 
 ^' That would not be at all impossible," replied 
 the Marquise. " But let me answer your 
 question. What I have to say is, that no pre- 
 liminary discussion, whatever be its nature, 
 has, or can have, the faintest action on the 
 working out of marriage. Marriage is a con- 
 dition so special, so exceptional, so apart from, 
 and so unlike all other conditions ; it depends 
 so absolutely for its developments on circum- 
 stances, emotions, accidents, and caprices ; it 
 involves — if it is to be carried to success — 
 the adjustment of so many contradictory ten- 
 dencies, the employment of so many untried 
 capacities, and the combination of so many 
 happy chances, that no antecedents can affect 
 it. Prudence, precaution, calculation, prob- 
 ability, all count for nothing in it. It is 
 utterly impossible to foresee its outgrowth,
 
 CLAIEE BRAXDOX. 255 
 
 however you may begin it, for tlie reason 
 that ..." 
 
 " If I could have imagined you would have 
 told me all these abominations, I would never 
 have put my question to you," interrupted 
 Harriet Brandon. 
 
 " Now, do let me go on. I say that the 
 motives, the influences, the incentives, the 
 impulses which marriage brings into play, are 
 all special to, and can only arise in, the state of 
 matrimony itself, and are therefore, when they 
 produce themselves, absolutely new to the two 
 persons interested. I say that it is only after 
 marriage that they can find out whether they 
 are fit for each other. It is only then that 
 they can become acquainted with the inten- 
 tions of fate. In every case marriage is, by 
 its inherent nature, a leap in the dark. No 
 matter in what direction you approach it, the 
 result is equally uncertain. You may bound 
 into delight, or you may topple into ruin, or 
 you may smoulder into anything between the 
 two. Any result is just as likely as any other, 
 and just as independent of any measures you 
 may adopt beforehand. Nothing can guide 
 you surely. No intimacy, however solid ; no
 
 256 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 study of character, however complete ; no habits, 
 however ancient ; no affection, however real, 
 can do more than supply a delusive probability. 
 The best of friends may make the worst of 
 spouses ; and, as we said just now, enemies 
 might possibly get on very well together under 
 the cementing action of matrimony. Conse- 
 quently, my dear friend, do not preach your 
 English notions to me ; and permit me to 
 retain my French conviction that, in a pro- 
 ceeding of which the issue is so hopelessly 
 unfathomable, it is wise — as you can ensure 
 nothing else — to stipulate that the victims 
 shall, at all events, be certain of bread." 
 
 " Horrible ! horrible I horrible ! " cried Har- 
 riet Brandon, throwing up her hands. 
 
 "Juliette is, as usual, dogmatic and rather 
 cynical," observed M. de Morvan. "But I 
 am afraid I must say also that she is right. 
 It cannot be pretended that English or German 
 marriages, which are the fruit of the operation 
 known as love-making, are one atom more 
 successful in the mass than French marriages 
 which result from what you call a commercial 
 transaction, and in which no love-making is 
 attempted till after marriage. It would be
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 257 
 
 contrary both to the teaching of facts and 
 to the logic of life, to assert that one system 
 turns out better than the other. The testi- 
 mony of Europe proves that the proportions 
 of failure and success are, in every country, 
 about the same." 
 
 " I listen to you both with abhorrence," 
 exclaimed Harriet Brandon. "Your theories 
 are odious. It is discrustino; that men and 
 women should be coupled together without 
 love. If you suppress love as the guiding 
 incentive to marriao-e ..." 
 
 " I do not suppress it at all," interrupted 
 Madame d'H^ristal. " On the contrary, I am 
 altogether in favour of it, provided it is 
 established on a solid basis. But I repeat 
 that, however desirable it may be after, it 
 guarantees nothing before." 
 
 " If you suppress love as the guiding incen- 
 tive to marriage," continued Harriet Brandon, 
 "you ought, as a natural consequence, to sup- 
 press marriage itself as well ; for without love 
 for its motive — pre-existing love I mean — it 
 ceases to be a high moral act ; it loses its noble 
 aspects, and becomes a mere ordinary associa- 
 tion for vulgar purposes." 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 258 CLAIEE BEANDON. 
 
 " That lias been said to me before," answered 
 the Marquise. " I have even heard it argued 
 by enthusiasts that marriage without love is 
 like language without meaning, like daylight 
 without sun, like a garden without flowers. 
 To me^ all that is nonsense. What do you 
 say, silent Claire *? " 
 
 " I elect to marry like an English girl, 
 in the hope of giving and receiving love. I 
 suspect there may be truth in your description 
 of the special difiiculties of the married state, 
 but I believe most firmly that love beforehand 
 supplies the surest means of conquering those 
 difiiculties. And, really, I have not been 
 inspired, by my experiences of the last few 
 days, v/ith much respect for the arrangement 
 which, in France, replaces the very ancient 
 process of love-making." 
 
 " Oh, I do not pretend," answered the Mar- 
 quise, "that our system is pretty to look at. 
 I frankly admit that love-making is infinitely 
 more attractive to the eye, more amusing to 
 the head, and more satisfying to the heart. 
 Only it is absurd, illogical, unpractical, and 
 perfectly useless as a producer of permanent 
 efi"ects."
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 259 
 
 " I said just now," remarked M. de MorvaD, 
 " that the results of marriage are, on an aver- 
 age, the same everywhere, and that the various 
 ways of arranging marriage have, in reality, 
 no effect on those results. I do not suppose 
 you will deny the general truth of that, Miss 
 Brandon, or that you will pretend, seriously, 
 that marriages are, on the whole, more pro- 
 ductive of happiness in England and in Ger- 
 many than in France ? " 
 
 " I do not pretend it," answered Harriet 
 Brandon. " I acknowledge with regret, that 
 — so far as my limited experience enables me 
 to judge — married people do not seem to be 
 worse off in France than they are in England. 
 x\nd yet, as they enter marriage without love, 
 they deserve to be utterly miserable." 
 
 *' I assure you they are not more miserable 
 than others are," continued M. de Morvan. 
 '' Marriage rarely brings about great content- 
 ment anywhere. There is a general equiva- 
 lence about the world in the quantities of hap- 
 piness and unhappiness, as well as of vice and 
 virtue. The forms and details vary with 
 latitude, climate, and surroundings, but the 
 aggregate of the products is substantially the
 
 260 CLAIRE BEANDON. 
 
 same everywhere. There seems to be a law 
 of averages in the results of human action, 
 a law from which we cannot escape, and which 
 is steadily enforced by nature without refer- 
 ence to the methods we employ." 
 
 " From which you appear to conclude," 
 observed Claire, "that, as no methods can 
 affect the result, methods are, in themselves, 
 valueless." 
 
 "No, indeed, I do not go so far as that, 
 Mademoiselle Claire. I proclaim, on the con- 
 trary, that, though methods cannot be relied 
 on to produce results, and though we cannot, 
 therefore, regard them as possessing any value 
 of principle, they may, all the same, be very 
 useful to individuals, and may, in special 
 cases, render real service. I do not doubt 
 that as regards yourself, for instance, the 
 method of falling in love will be the best that 
 you can follow." 
 
 " Thank you for the permission," replied 
 Claire, laughing. " I will inform you, later 
 on, how that method succeeds with me." 
 
 " I differ entirely from my brother on that 
 point, Claire," said the Marquise, rather gravely. 
 " I do not like to see you try the experiment
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 261 
 
 of love ; for, with a character like yours, 
 failure would be serious. You are an en- 
 thusiast ; and, though you have acquired 
 considerable command over yourself, I warn 
 you that, when love comes, self-command is 
 usually of small utility. If ever you do en- 
 counter your ideal ; if ever your imagination 
 is really kindled ; if ever you do let yourself 
 go, your love will be a headlong torrent. I 
 do not like to speculate as to what might 
 happen if it encountered obstacles. I should 
 be more confident about your future if I knew 
 that you intend to contract marriage without 
 passion, as a reasonable and well - prepared 
 arrangement." 
 
 " My Claire will never lend herself to such 
 an odious desecration ! " exclaimed Harriet 
 Brandon. 
 
 And then the subject dropped. 
 
 That afternoon Claire went shopping, and 
 Harriet Brandon drove to the Bois with 
 Madame d'Heristal. After some idle talk, 
 the latter said, " My dear friend, I want to 
 speak to you, as we are alone, on a matter 
 which deeply interests my brother and myself, 
 and which we have ventured to hope you
 
 262 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 would have thouglit fit to mention, of your 
 own accord, to such friends as we are. As, 
 however, you have made no allusion to it, 
 I thought it was discreet to wait for a natural 
 opportunity of drawing your attention to it. 
 I was sure an opportunity would come — and 
 it has come. What we were all saying this 
 morniug about marriage in general, and about 
 Claire's marriage in particular, seems to me 
 to have brought about that opportunity. You 
 will probably not be surprised to hear that 
 the Yalonas wrote us all the details about 
 Claire's birth, about the trial, and about your 
 brother. Let me say, at once, that if the 
 earnestness of our regard for both of you could 
 be increased by any cause whatever, the touch- 
 ing story we have heard would have produced 
 that efi'ect. But, my dear friend, I do not 
 bring up the question now simply to tell you 
 that our affection for you both is very great. 
 There is something else ; something about 
 which Madame Yalona tells me she had 
 already spoken to you ; something about 
 which we feel, both Charles and I, that it 
 is our duty to offer you our opinion. You 
 have decided, thus far, to leave Claire in
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 263 
 
 ignorance of her legal position. She may 
 have suspicions — you told Madame Valona 
 that she does suspect something — but I believe 
 I am correct in saying that she does not know 
 the real truth. Now, permit me to ask you 
 whether it would not be wiser to tell her what 
 the real truth is ? I put this to you, not only 
 because it seems to Charles and to myself (as 
 it did to the Yalonas) that, in principle, Claire 
 ought not, at her age, to remain any longer 
 unacquainted with the situation in which the 
 law has placed her ; not only because we think 
 it is unfair — and even cruel — to leave her 
 exposed to the risk of a sudden accidental 
 revelation ; but especially because, in talking 
 this morning of her marriage, it occurred to 
 me that, when she does marry, you will be 
 forced to state the facts, whether you like it 
 or not. You cannot give her to a husband 
 under a false label. I found in that con- 
 versation the opportunity I was seeking ; and 
 now, for Charles and for myself, I entreat you 
 to let Claire know her history. It will have 
 to come out some day. It is only just to 
 her, with her nature, that there should be no 
 further delay."
 
 264 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 Harriet Brandon had listened in silence. 
 She remained silent for some time after 
 Madame d'H^ristal had ceased to speak. At 
 last, in a low voice, she said, " I do not pre- 
 tend you are not right. Sometimes even I 
 tell myself the same thing. But I cannot do 
 it. I have kept the secret for nearly twenty 
 years. The keeping of it has been the object 
 of my life. I cannot . . . cannot tell it to her. 
 It would make her so unhappy. And I can- 
 not let any one else tell it to her. I may be 
 wrong — indeed, I think I am — but I cannot 
 do it. If she marries, we shall see. Mean- 
 while let her have peace — while it lasts. 
 Never, never, never can I decide to tell her — 
 unless the necessity is forced upon me by 
 irresistible circumstances. I have the intensest 
 terror of what might happen if she knew the 
 truth." 
 
 ''Dearest friend," replied the Marquise, 
 '' will you let me point out to you two things ? 
 the first, that you ought to think of Claire 
 as well as of yourself — I am not accustomed to 
 see you selfish : the second, that, from what 
 the Valonas have told us, you were just as
 
 CLAIEE BRANDON. 265 
 
 afraid of meeting your brother, until you did 
 meet him ; and then you found you were 
 consoled, not afflicted, by the meeting. It 
 miofht be the same in this matter of Claire." 
 
 ''Oh, it is so different ! " exclaimed Harriet 
 Brandon. '' Claire would be ill. She could 
 not bear it. It is not for myself Do not 
 caU me selfish. It is for her. And yet I cannot 
 help fearing what she might think of me and 
 of my conduct in it all. If she blamed me, 
 if I lost her love, it would kill me." 
 
 "" But, I repeat," insisted the Marquise, 
 '' Claire counts for something." 
 
 " Claire counts for everything," was the 
 eager reply. " You cannot doubt that I think 
 of her alone. When I talk of myself it is for 
 her. I am only another form of her. No ; for 
 her own sake, I cannot tell her. If it has to 
 come, it will come by the will of fate, but 
 never with my consent." 
 
 " Then I shall look on at the life of Claire 
 with unceasing anxiety," said the Marquise. 
 " I shall watch her history with perpetual dread. 
 May God grant that when at last she does 
 learn the truth — for learn it she will and
 
 266 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 must — it may not be under conditions that 
 will destroy her whole existence ! I have a 
 gloomy presentiment about it, and so has 
 Charles, and so have the Yalonas. You are 
 wrong, dear friend ; you are very wrong."
 
 267 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Change of scene and constant occupation liad 
 given Claire so much to tliink about that she 
 had in part forgotten the doubts which had 
 oppressed her during the preceding summer. 
 Her present life amused her, and as she sought 
 instruction in amusement, it did not seem to 
 her too empty. 
 
 Society in Paris interested her extremely ; 
 but it disappointed her even more than it in- 
 terested her. She had not entirely believed 
 the accounts of it that Madame d^Heristal had 
 given her ; she knew that the Marquise exag- 
 gerated sometimes, and she had learnt not to 
 attach implicit trust to the depreciatory re- 
 marks about persons and things which flowed 
 so easily from her lips. She had continued, 
 notwithstanding her assertions, to expect that, 
 at least, the society of Paris would present
 
 268 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 features, aspects, qualities, proper to itself. 
 She knew that it had lost the special graces, 
 the special aptitudes, the special brilliancies 
 which are said to have been displayed by it 
 in other days, but she could not conceive that 
 it had failed to retain a character of its own, 
 apart from that of other societies. It seemed 
 to her that, with such an ancestry, with such 
 a history, with such traditions, it could 
 not possibly have become dispossessed of all 
 distinctive attributes, and that some, at least, 
 of its former properties must have come down 
 to this generation, unaffected by destroying 
 causes. 
 
 Yet, though she searched with the curiosity 
 of a discoverer and the faith of a believer, she 
 could detect nothing in any way unlike what 
 she had already seen elsewhere. She found in 
 abundance the usual inequalities of capacity, 
 the usual diversities of manner and appear- 
 ance, the usual disparities of tone, attitude, 
 and conduct; but she could perceive no 
 general high level, and she was forced to rec- 
 ognise unwillingly, as her examination pro- 
 ceeded, that the society of Paris, whatever it 
 may have once been, now resembles all other
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 269 
 
 societies, and can no longer claim a place 
 apart. 
 
 She spoke of this one day when M. de 
 Morvan was sitting with them. She said, " I 
 expected more — much more — than this. I 
 could not have supposed that the idea which 
 Europe persists in entertaining with reference 
 to this society, should be so little justified by 
 reality. Everybody fancies that Paris still 
 possesses three superiorities, — talk, manner, 
 and women's dress. But here, amidst it all, 
 with my eyes wide open, I am constrained to 
 own that, so far as I have seen, talk, manner, 
 and dress are, on the whole, no better than 
 in other places. There are some few bright 
 talkers; but so there are elsewhere. There 
 are some few admirable types of manner ; but 
 so there are elsewhere. Here, as elsewhere, 
 striking models are rare exceptions. As else- 
 where, provincialism, awkwardness, and dul- 
 ness are the rule. And as for dress, I am sure 
 we have not seen five women who wear dresses 
 suited to and subordinated to themselves ; 
 they all commit, on the contrary, the senseless 
 fault of making themselves the lay-figures and 
 the serfs of their dresses. They do not em-
 
 270 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 ploy their dresses to set off their persons, but 
 rejoice that their dresses are admired, irre- 
 spective of their persons." 
 
 '' Juliette has told you we are a decaying 
 race," observed M. de Morvan. '' That is one 
 of her favourite axioms. Like a good deal she 
 says, there is truth in it ; but it alone does 
 not explain the fact which you have noticed, 
 that French society has become scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable from the other societies of Europe. 
 There are two reasons for it — T speak, re- 
 member, as an old wanderer, not as a French- 
 man. The first is, that we have undeniably 
 lost a large part of our former endowments ; 
 that is the one which Juliette has indicated 
 to you. The second — which Juliette has not 
 mentioned, because, as she never travels, she 
 has had no opportunity of perceiving it — is 
 that the rest of the world has been climbing 
 up while we have been slipping down, has 
 been acquiring capacities while we have been 
 losing them. Between the two the character 
 of the various societies of Europe has grown 
 generally similar and equal. Like water, it has 
 found a common level. There are still, scat- 
 tered about, certain local excellences or weak-
 
 CLAIEE BEAXDOX. 271 
 
 nesses ; certain specific aptitudes or inaptitudes, 
 certain peculiarities due to race or atmosphere ; 
 but none of them are important enough, or 
 marked enough, to bestow on the society 
 which owns them any real unlikeness to 
 other societies. They are local accidents, not 
 fundamental difi'erences. The national char- 
 acteristics of all societies have disappeared, 
 like national costumes. Improved education 
 and improved communications have suppressed 
 them both. I have admitted to you that, 
 simultaneously with the operation of these 
 universal causes, the French have fallen 
 separately from their former place. But let 
 me insist that the decline of France, real 
 though it be, is insufficient by itself to ex- 
 plain the collective levelling. It is due far 
 more to the rise of others than to our own 
 decay." 
 
 " But yet you do admit that you are decay- 
 ing," put in Harriet Brandon. 
 
 " I admit it because it is useless to deny 
 what everybody sees, and, indeed, what every- 
 body proclaims. Even our newspapers are full 
 of declarations of our decadence. Society has 
 faded like everything else, and, in part, from
 
 272 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 the same causes. We have ceased to be the 
 most agreeable people in Europe." 
 
 '' But if others have become more agreeable 
 than they were, there is compensation," argued 
 Claire. 
 
 " No, not for us. Compensation for Europe, 
 but not for France. We French do not regain 
 by the improvement of our neighbours what 
 we lose by our own degeneracy." 
 
 " But the wide world gains," insisted Claire, 
 " and that is more important. With all my 
 sympathies for France, I had rather see every- 
 body else profit than France alone." 
 
 " Pray do not talk political economy, 
 Claire," said Harriet Brandon. '' Mademoiselle 
 Serret is no longer with us ; so you can leave 
 that alone. Besides, you are not grateful to 
 Paris. When you were working here you 
 maintained it was a wonderfully teaching 
 place ; unlike any other, you thought then." 
 
 " I think so still, dear Tatte. I do not 
 mean to detract from its many special capaci- 
 ties when I say that its society seems similar 
 to other societies. And that is all I do say. 
 The Duke de Saintes professes that the cook- 
 ery of Paris stands alone in the world. The
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 273 
 
 Count de Morvan — now present — has always 
 assured me that nonsense, scandal, and Gov- 
 ernments are more abundant, more irrational, 
 and more transient here than in any other set- 
 tlement of men and women. The Marquise 
 d'Heristal informs me that the theatres are 
 unapproachably perfect. Victor Hugo pro- 
 claims that Paris is the ' City of Light.' 
 Mademoiselle Serret was of opinion that it is 
 ' an intensified condensation of information,' 
 ' a marrow of tuition.' Being unable to verify 
 these various assertions, I humbly believe them 
 all. I can see, with my own eyes, that the 
 houses are particularly white, the air particu- 
 larly clear, the cabs particularly slow, the sol- 
 diers particularly short, the crowds particu- 
 larly well-behaved. Shall I go on, Tatte ? 
 There is plenty more of that kind to be said. 
 But none of it afi'ects the question of the ab- 
 sence of superiority in the society of the place." 
 
 " No, no, Claire, do not go on. Your list is 
 too long already. And it is not fair to Paris, 
 to make an inventory of it, after that fashion. 
 It is a place to be felt — not to be catalogued. 
 I never liked it myself; I do not like it now. 
 But as other j)eople are mad about it, and say 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 274 CLAIEE BRANDON. 
 
 there is nothing equal to it, I suppose there 
 must be something in it ; though I cannot 
 see what." 
 
 " I think I can explain it to you/' said M. 
 de Morvan. '' Only this time I speak as a 
 Frenchman, not as a wanderer. It is precisely 
 because, as you say, it is to be Jelt, that it is 
 what it is. The charm of Paris results, not 
 from the spectacle it offers, but from the emo- 
 tion it excites. I confess that, when it is 
 looked at minutely, numbers of its ingredients 
 have no charm at all in themselves ; yet, as 
 parts of Paris, they assume a charm. Else- 
 where their ugliness would assert itself through 
 any surroundings. Here it disappears in the 
 general effect. If I went into detail you would 
 attack me ; if I quoted examples you would 
 contradict me ; if I argued you would dispute 
 with me. So I content myself with your own 
 word, and I say that when once you hsiYe felt 
 Paris — and many foreigners do feel it — you 
 love it. That is my explanation." 
 
 " And a very miserable explanation it is, my 
 dear Count," answered Harriet Brandon. " You 
 explain by the result, not by the cause; by 
 the end, not by the beginning."
 
 CLAIEE BRANDON. 275 
 
 " My aunt's objection is very strong," put in 
 Claire ; " but I have to make one which is 
 stronger still. If Paris, as a city, as a whole, 
 possesses the mysterious charm you talk of, 
 why does not its society — which ought to be 
 its pith, its essence, its highest demonstration 
 — offer more charm than all the rest ? I 
 assert that, on the contrary, it offers less." 
 
 *' My dear Mademoiselle Claire, is it quite 
 just of you to attack the society of Paris after 
 the very limited experience you have had of 
 it ? You have only been in ' contact ' with it 
 for three weeks." 
 
 " Three weeks suffice for a general impres- 
 sion, my dear friend ; and that is all I pretend 
 to have. Surely you will not deny me the 
 right to form a general impression, as a result 
 of what I see. And remember that I have 
 talked to people who have lived for years in 
 Paris, and w^hose testimony rests on long ex- 
 perience. There is old Madame Arnsberg ; 
 there is Princess Mohileff, who has been here 
 for a quarter of a century ; there is the Marchesa 
 Tao]iacozzo. You will not assert that those 
 three do not know^ the place. Well, they all 
 have told me that they stop in it for two
 
 276 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 reasons — it amuses them, and they are accus- 
 tomed to it. But not one of those three, or 
 anybody else, has pretended, in answer to the 
 many questions I have put, that — except 
 amusement — there is one single satisfaction to 
 be got here that cannot be found elsewhere." 
 
 " Why, amusement is precisely what society 
 most prizes. If Paris can offer it, in a special 
 shape or quantity, it seems to me that, by that 
 single property, it stands above and apart from 
 all other places." 
 
 ^^ Yes, certainly, that would be so if the 
 amusement were based on origins or capacities 
 which no other place possesses, or if the amuse- 
 ment, in itself, were of a particularly high, 
 particularly varied, particularly satisfying cha- 
 racter. But that is not the case at all. Amuse- 
 ment here is not — according to the information 
 given to me, remember, without speaking of 
 my own short experience — more intelligent, 
 more abundant, or more keen than what many 
 other capitals can offer. M. Valona — whose 
 opinion will have weight with you — has al- 
 ways told me so. There are no outdoor pleas- 
 ures here^ — in that direction London is far 
 away ahead of Paris ; and I maintain that the
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 277 
 
 indoor pleasures have not the charm which 
 Europe is good enough to attribute to them. 
 That brings me back again to society — society, 
 I mean, as distinguished from the streets ; 
 indoors, as distinguished from out of doors." 
 
 " There, I have already said that I agree with 
 you," replied M. de Morvan. "The charm I was 
 talking of just now, the charm which delights 
 the foreigner almost more than the French- 
 man, is the charm of the air, the movement, 
 the general gaiety. As regards society alone, 
 I can only repeat what I stated just now, that 
 the local characteristics of all societies are dis- 
 appearing, and that the society of Paris, like 
 the others, has lost the distinctive marks it 
 once possessed. Paris remains Paris and still 
 pleases, in spite of the Kepublic. Its society 
 is no longer its former self, and ceases there- 
 fore to exercise any special fascination." 
 
 '^ All the more reason for preferring England 
 as a home, Tatte, even with its horrible climate. 
 I hope you will decide to settle there." 
 
 This was one of the frequent observations 
 which Claire made to her aunt about choosinor 
 a permanent resting-place. But she produced 
 no eflfect. Harriet Brandon could not be de-
 
 278 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 cided, and she was beginning to invoke a 
 special argument against England. She had 
 suffered, for some months past, from an irrita- 
 tion in her throat, and she declared that Eng- 
 lish air would be too damp for her, until she 
 was cured. One of her objects in coming to 
 Paris had been to consult a specialist ; she had 
 seen one several times, and he had recom- 
 mended a season at Cauterets and a dry at- 
 mosphere for the following winter. She shel- 
 tered herself behind this advice to postpone 
 their return to England, and, against such a 
 motive, Claire could invoke no arguments. 
 She recognised that she must go on waiting. 
 For the moment, fortunately, she had the 
 occupation of studying Paris, and she threw 
 herself into it with the ardour of her nature. 
 She visited all its sights ; she looked at many 
 of its sorrows ; she examined, so far as she 
 could, the organisation of its manifold chari- 
 ties ; she learnt from the admirable examples 
 that came before her eyes the lesson of the 
 good that she herself might do elsewhere, and 
 her longing to relieve suffering grew all the 
 greater by this teaching. And, with this close 
 observation of the present of Paris, she did her
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 279 
 
 utmost to explore its past ; she read, with de- 
 lighted interest, the books that have been pub- 
 lished both on its annals as a whole, and on 
 many special chapters and special features of 
 its life ; she tried to measure and to realise the 
 immense effects that have been produced by 
 politics — far more than in any other city — on 
 the development of the history of Paris, and on 
 the formation of the character of its inhabitants; 
 she pored over the collections of old maps be- 
 longing to the State and the Municipality, and 
 reconstituted, in imagination, the former group- 
 ings and the former aspects of the streets. 
 
 Her remarkable power of analysis, assisted 
 by her unfailing memory, enabled her to carry 
 on this double scrutiny with success ; and 
 when, at the end of July, the moment came to 
 go away, she had acquired as complete a know- 
 ledge of Paris, its chronicles, its temper, and 
 its life, as it is possible for a girl to procure. 
 
 She left it with the two feelings which had 
 arisen in her on her arrival three months be- 
 fore, and which had become confirmed by ex- 
 perience — she was deeply interested and deeply 
 disappointed. She saw the truth of the ex- 
 planation which had been supplied to her by
 
 280 CLAIEE BEANDON. 
 
 M. de Morvan, and recognised that though the 
 society of Paris no longer occupies the first 
 place in Europe, Paris itself still pleases, 
 teaches, and amuses more and otherwise than 
 any of its rivals. 
 
 At the last moment the doctor changed his 
 mind. Instead of sending Harriet Brandon to 
 the Pyrenees^ he recommended her, suddenly, 
 to try Ems. This modification of plans con- 
 tented Claire. She had never been to Ger- 
 many, and began at once to study guide-books 
 and to sketch out a visit to Prussia and Saxony 
 after the cure at Ems was finished. 
 
 Her friend, Princess MohilefF, had gone to 
 Ems, and it was agreeable to be certain of 
 finding her there on arriving, so as not to be 
 without an acquaintance. 
 
 In order to avoid travelling at night, which 
 was beginning to tire Harriet Brandon, they 
 went by Cologne and slept there. Next morn- 
 ing they continued the journey. 
 
 When they entered the carriage they found 
 themselves with a tall white-haired woman of 
 about sixty, who made immediately an impres- 
 sion on them both. Claire, with her quick 
 perception, formed, almost at a glance, an
 
 CLAIRE BEAXDOX. 281 
 
 opinion of the stranger. She seemed a model 
 of a distinguished old lady, stately but not 
 stiff, imposing but not severe, aristocratic but 
 not haughty. The grandeur and tlie dignity 
 of her person were very marked, but the 
 gracious kindliness of her expression and the 
 naturalness of her manner removed all hard- 
 ness. She was simply dressed. Claire was 
 so much struck by her that she whispered to 
 her aunt, '*' Tatte, that is somebody. It is quite 
 delightful to see such a type. I wonder if she 
 is going to Ems." 
 
 And then she looked again at the stranger, 
 and looked with such evident interest that the 
 lady smiled slightly. But she did not speak ; 
 she took up a book ; and Claire, with some dis- 
 appointment at finding no opportunity of open- 
 ing a conversation, turned over the newspapers 
 she had bought, and then looked out of the 
 window. The lady went on reading, but 
 glanced from time to time at Claire. 
 
 So they travelled on until the train reached 
 Coblenz. There they had to change for Ems, 
 and Miss Brandon's courier, with Berthe and 
 the maid, came to fetch the bags and cloaks. 
 On leaving the carriage they saw that the
 
 282 CLAIHE BRANDON. 
 
 old lady also was preparing to get out. So 
 Harriet Brandon said to her, in Frencli, 
 ''Will you permit my servants to take your 
 things ? " 
 
 " Thank you very much. My maid is there 
 waiting for them." 
 
 And she spoke, in German, to a person who 
 had come to the carriage-door. 
 
 Then, to Claire's great satisfaction, the old 
 lady walked with them to the other train, and 
 took a place in the same compartment. 
 
 As soon as they had got settled in their new 
 seats, Harriet Brandon said, " I hope it is not 
 for yourself that you are going to Ems ? " 
 
 " Indeed it is," was the reply. " I have 
 suffered for many years from chronic bronchitis, 
 and I come each summer to Ems to battle with 
 it." After a moment she continued, " I think 
 you are English '? " 
 
 Miss Brandon smiled and nodded. 
 
 *' I was a good deal in England in former 
 years. I have many friends there, and am 
 always pleased to find occasion to talk grate- 
 fully of your land." And then she looked at 
 Claire, and added, " But you, mademoiselle, if I 
 judge aright, can scarcely be purely English?"
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. ~ 283 
 
 " Yes, indeed. But I have been brought up 
 abroad. I am, however, so heartily English 
 that I am thoroughly content with being what 
 I am." 
 
 *'' That is an excellent condition of mind," 
 replied the lady, " and with which I sympa- 
 thise, for I live in it myself. I, like you, have 
 alw^ays thought — and the experience of a life 
 which has grown long has confirmed my first 
 ideas — that the land to which I belons: is the 
 foremost in the world." 
 
 " As we have confessed our origin, madam e," 
 said Harriet Brandon, "would it be indiscreet 
 to ask you what is that country ? " 
 
 " I am Austrian," answered the old lady. 
 
 And as she spoke the words a flash of such 
 towering pride passed over her face, that, while 
 it lasted, the habitual sweetness disappeared 
 entirely, and was replaced by a glance that 
 was altogether inflexible. 
 
 That look astonished Claire, and even 
 shocked her. Her admiration of the stately 
 calm of the face before her eyes was for a mo- 
 ment destroyed by it. But the charm was too 
 real to be afi'ected by a momentary change 
 of expression, however violent, and she soon
 
 284 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 forgot that the face had indicated for a passing 
 second a feeling different from gentleness. 
 
 The talk went on lightly and gaily until the 
 train stopped at Ems, and then with smiles 
 the Brandons and the lady parted. 
 
 On reaching the Hotel des Quatre Saisons, 
 where they had engaged rooms, they found 
 with pleased surprise that the lady had come 
 there too. They arrived almost together. 
 
 In the afternoon the visitors' book was 
 brought to Harriet Brandon that she might 
 inscribe their names, and in it, freshly written, 
 they read, " Countess von Hohenwalden, born 
 Princess von Teplitz-Zeditz." 
 
 " Our travelling companion ! " exclaimed 
 Claire. " I was sure she was somebody. '^ 
 
 Then they went out to see the place, and to 
 seek for Princess Mohileff. 
 
 They found her, after a short search, sitting 
 reading in the gallery. Luckily she was alone. 
 After words of welcome, and inquiries about 
 health and friends, Harriet Brandon asked her, 
 " Now tell us ; who is here ^ " 
 
 " Who is here ? Well, the Emperor is gone ; 
 but that is an advantage, for the crowd is 
 lessened. Of course there is the usual band of
 
 CLAIRE BRANDOX. 285 
 
 Germans from the top, the bottom, and the 
 middle, and from all the countries that make 
 up the empire. There are traders, soldiers, 
 functionaries, Jews, and princes. And there are 
 German women as well as Germen men ; good 
 women, I daresay — they look it. But their 
 clothes ! You will see. And there are plenty 
 of my compatriots, and people of all other 
 races — hardly any of them good-looking. And 
 there is one Frenchwoman — only one. Since 
 the war they have abstained. But that one 
 counts for a thousand, for she never leaves off 
 talking. You must have seen her in Paris — 
 the Marquise de Rochedure. She is always 
 exaggerated, often amusing, sometimes fatigu- 
 ing. She has an opinion about everything, 
 and permits nobody else to have one in her 
 presence. The Germans dislike her, but they 
 make love to her all the same. It is a need 
 of her nature to know everybody. She is a 
 highly developed example of the ideal of the 
 young Paris woman of to-day. In fact I sus- 
 pect she is the only one of her sort." 
 
 And then, as she glanced down the gaUer}^, 
 a look of astonishment came suddenly over her 
 face, and she exclaimed, " Why, here comes
 
 286 CLAIEE BEANDON. 
 
 my old friend Madame de Holienwalden. I 
 did not know she was here/' 
 
 And the Brandons saw that their travelling 
 companion was approaching 
 
 There w^as a warm greeting, and then 
 Princess Mohileff introduced the Brandons 
 to the new-comer. 
 
 Countess Hohenwalden said at once to Claire, 
 with evident amusement, " Decidedly, made- 
 moiselle, it is the ^vill of fate that we should 
 know each other. Three meetings in one day 
 cannot be ascribed to unguided hazard. We 
 travel together ; we lodge together ; and now 
 we find a mutual friend who, formally, tells us 
 each other's names." 
 
 " I am much beholden to fate, madame," 
 answered Claire, '' for treating me so kindly, 
 and for realising my desire to know you." 
 
 " I shared that wish," added Harriet Bran- 
 don, '' and, like my niece, I thank fortune for 
 satisfying it." 
 
 '' Then I too ought to be grateful to destiny," 
 said Princess Mohileff, " for having selected me 
 to serve as the last link in the combination." 
 
 And they talked till five o'clock, when 
 everybody went to consult the doctor.
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDOX. 287 
 
 In the evening they met again at the con- 
 cert. Claire was particularly astonished by 
 the attitude of the people whom she found 
 listening to a badly executed symphony of 
 Haydn, as if it were a sermon, with a rev- 
 erence and a devotion that would not have 
 been out of place in a church. The indifferent 
 foreigners who dared to talk and laugh, as if no 
 sacred rite were being performed, offended 
 the respectfully motionless Germans. And as 
 even Claire, with all her love and need of 
 music, was unable to remain silent, and al- 
 lowed herself to speak occasionally, she too 
 excited wrath around her, and perceived that 
 many of her neighbours were casting looks of 
 indiofnation at her. That was her first lesson 
 in the ways of Germany. As soon as the 
 piece was over, and she could open her 
 mouth without danger, she said to Countess 
 Hohenwalden, " Surely it is absurd to make a 
 tyranny of music like that, and in a casino 
 too. Music is not a prison rule. It is the 
 noblest manifestation of free thought. To use 
 it as a destroyer of freedom is an abomi- 
 nation." 
 
 The Countess smiled at the excitement of
 
 288 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 Claire, and said, " Have you not heard, made- 
 moiselle, that the object of every Government 
 is supposed to be * the greatest good of the 
 greatest number ' ? A German crowd uncon- 
 sciously applies that principle when it listens 
 to a band. It claims that a foreign minority 
 shall not disturb the peaceful contemplative- 
 ness with which the local majority absorbs 
 harmony." 
 
 '* Oh, madame," cried Claire, " that is only 
 one more of the many proofs we see about the 
 world of the cruelty of majorities. In all 
 matters of feeling — and music certainly is a 
 matter of feeling — I have an instinctive pref- 
 erence for minorities ; for it seems to me that, 
 as a rule, it is they who represent the progress 
 and the liberty of sensation. Besides, there is 
 something very satisfying to the nerves in 
 being on the rebellious side." 
 
 " Then, if you want progress, and liberty, 
 and rebellion all at once, I would suggest to 
 you not to remain in the crowd, but to go 
 outside it when you want to manifest your 
 feelings." 
 
 And as she said this, Countess Hohenwal- 
 den looked a little shocked. She added, how-
 
 CLAIRE BRAXDON. 289 
 
 ever, "My son talks that sort of lansfuage, 
 mademoiselle. Like you, lie proclaims the 
 right of every one to an opinion. I have 
 never been able to admit that. I was brouoht 
 up in the conviction that we ought to duti- 
 fully accept our opinions from constituted 
 authority ; and here, as regards the manner 
 of listening to music, the crowd is the consti- 
 tuted authority." 
 
 " Where is your son ? " asked Princess 
 Mohileff. 
 
 ''At Vienna at this moment. But he will 
 join me here in a day or two, and will stay 
 with me for a while. He has been much 
 occupied, and needs rest. You know what 
 an enthusiast he is, and how hard he 
 works." 
 
 " He is a very noble fellow," said the 
 Princess, *' and however much you may differ 
 from him in politics^ you have every reason to 
 be proud of him.'' 
 
 "Yes, I am proud of him," answered 
 Countess Hohenwalden. '' He bears our name 
 worthily — according to the ideas of the period 
 at least." And the strange look of tremendous 
 
 VOL. L T
 
 290 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 pride passed over the old lady's face once 
 more. Claire saw it. 
 
 Before the conversation could be continued, 
 there came up to the group an extremely well- 
 dressed young woman, with a bright, intelli- 
 gent, but not pretty face, exclaiming, as she 
 took an empty chair, " Ah, here you are, Prin- 
 cess ! I have been looking for you everywhere." 
 
 The Princess named her, '' The Marquise de 
 Kochedure." 
 
 She bowed carelessly, and told them, putting 
 her feet at the same time on the bar of the 
 Princess's chair, "We dined inside — at the 
 Kursaal — half-a-dozen of us. It was pro- 
 digiously nasty. French cookery executed by 
 German hands. A sacrilege, my dear Prin- 
 cess." Suddenly, she looked fixedly at Claire, 
 and said, " But — we have met in Paris ! Yes, 
 surely. I remember your first appearance at 
 the Saintes ball. What an emotion you pro- 
 duced ! We made acquaintance at Madame 
 de Noyelle's. Do you remember? We were 
 neighbours at supper, and I upset my soup. 
 What are you doing here? Nothing wrong 
 with your throat, I hope? Mine is in a
 
 CLAIRE BRANDON. 291 
 
 ridiculous state. Some people say it is because 
 I talk too much. Are you at the Quatre 
 Saisons ? I am. When did you arrive ? 
 Don't let your doctor burn your throat ; it will 
 do you a great deal of harm. It is amusing 
 here, in a kind of a way ; but the getting up 
 at seven in the morning is awful ; it haunts 
 me all day, and I cannot sleep at night from 
 looking forward to it." 
 
 Harriet Brandon and Countess Hohenwalden 
 rose together, and the former said, *' The 
 music is going to begin again. After our ex- 
 perience just now, I think it would be prudent 
 to move away. Shall we go to the river 
 terrace ? " 
 
 As they wandered off, three men came up 
 to join Madame de Rochedure — two officers 
 from Coblenz and a young Russian. She 
 lingered behind with them, and was soon out 
 of sight. 
 
 *' Did you see many examples of that sort 
 while you were in Paris ? " asked Countess 
 Hohenwalden of Harriet Brandon. '' I have 
 heard of what the world calls ' chattering 
 Frenchwomen ' ; and I have encountered many
 
 292 CLAIRE BRANDON. 
 
 of them. But I do not remember such a type 
 as this one." 
 
 " Even in Paris she stands almost alone," 
 was the reply. '' I remember now that I have 
 heard of her as a rather exceptional person. 
 Many people find her amusing." 
 
 Then they went home, to be ready to get 
 up at seven. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.