BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE.
It was December, and the fields and pastures were
white in the tardy dawn with the frosty mists of early
winter, and Sir John Kirkland was busy making his
preparations for leaving Buckinghamshire and England
with his daughter. He had come from Spain at
the beginning of the year, hoping to spend the remnant
of his days in the home of his forefathers, and to
lay his old bones in the family vault; but the place
was poisoned to him for evermore, he told Angela.
He could not stay where he and his had been held in
highest honour, to have his daughter pointed at by
every grinning lout in hob-nailed shoes, and scorned
by the neighbouring quality. He only waited till
Denzil Warner should be pronounced out of danger and
on the high-road to recovery, before he crossed the
Channel.
“There is no occasion you should leave Buckinghamshire,
sir,” Angela argued. “It is the dearest
wish of my heart to return to the Convent at Louvain,
and finish my life there, sheltered from the world’s
contempt.”
“What, having failed to get your fancy, you
would dedicate yourself to God?” he cried.
“No, madam. I am still your father, though
you have disgraced me; and I require a daughter’s
duty from you. Oh, child, I so loved you, was
so proud of you! It is a bitter physic you have
given me to drink.”
She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands
shrunken with age.
“I will do whatever you desire, sir. I
wish no higher privilege than to wait upon you; but
when you weary of me there is ever the Convent.”
“Leave that for your libertine sister.
Be sure she will finish a loose life by a conspicuous
piety. She will turn saint like Madame de Longueville.
Sinners are the stuff of which modern saints are made.
And women love extremes—to pass from silk
and luxury to four-o’clock matins, and the Carmelite’s
woollen habit. No, Angela, there must be no Convent
for you, while I live. Your penance must be to
suffer the company of a petulant, disappointed old
man.”
“No penance, sir, but peace and contentment;
so I am but forgiven.”
“Oh, you are forgiven. There is that about
you with which one cannot long be angry—a
creature so gentle and submissive, a reed that bends
under a blow. Let us not think of the past.
You were a fool—but not a wanton. No,
I will never believe that! A generous, headstrong
fool, ready with thine own perjured lips to blacken
thy character in order to save the villain who did
his best to ruin thee. But thou art pure,”
looking down at her with a severe scrutiny. “There
is no memory of guilt in those eyes. We will go
away together, and live peacefully together, and you
shall still be the staff of my failing steps, the
light of my fading eyes, the comfort of my ebbing
life. Were I but easy in my mind about those poor
forsaken grandchildren, I could leave England cheerfully
enough; but to know them motherless—with
such a father!”
