by Ellen Wood
“Alnwick, his native air, might be the very place where he would grow strong,” cried Rose, persistently. “Wouldn’t I go to it if it were mine. Healthy or not healthy, I’d reign there, with the county at my feet.”
She laughed merrily; Mrs. Darling seemed uneasy. Indeed, there is little doubt that the appearance of both Charlotte and the child had seriously disturbed her. She moved past the crimson sofa to the side of her daughter, who was still looking listlessly into the street below.
“Do you think it well, Charlotte, to abandon Alnwick Hall so entirely to servants? I don’t.”
“You may go and live in it yourself, mamma, if you choose. I’m sure I don’t care who lives there. The servants keep it in order, I suppose — in readiness for my return? It is all my own now; that is, it’s Georgy’s; and I am responsible to no one.”
She spoke quietly, indifferently, smoothing back the braids of her most luxuriant hair. But for the strange fire in her eyes, the consuming hectic of her cheek, it might have been affirmed that she took no interest in any earthly thing.
“I am glad to see you have left off your widow’s caps, Charlotte,” resumed her mother. “They always look sad upon a young woman.”
“There was no help for leaving them off; we could not get any abroad. Prance contrived to manage them in some way as long as I wore them, but they were never tidy. Where’s Honour?” she suddenly exclaimed, turning her eyes, ablaze with sudden angry fire, on Mrs. Darling.
Mrs. Darling positively recoiled. And some feeling, which she did not stay to account for, and perhaps could not have accounted for, prompted her to withhold the fact that Honour had been taken in at Castle Wafer.
“She procured some other situation, I believe, Charlotte, after quitting the Hall. I have never heard from her.”
“A situation! Where? Not at Alnwick?”
“Oh dear no; not at Alnwick; in a different county; not very far, I think, from her native place.”
“Mamma, if ever you see her, ask her whether the boy’s spirit comes and haunts her in the night? It may; for she murdered him. She ought to suffer on the scaffold for her work. I wish she could; I might be more at rest.”
“Oh, Charlotte! Charlotte!” soothingly spoke Mrs. Darling from the depths of her fearful heart, — fearful she knew not of what. “Come and look here!” interrupted Rose in a whisper. They both turned. The little lad had fallen into a light doze on her lap, his wan hand clasping Rose’s blue ribbons, and the upright line on his pale forehead seeming to denote that he had gone to sleep in pain.
“Charlotte,” said Rose, earnestly, “I’m not used to children, and don’t pretend to understand them as you must do; but my belief is, that this child wants rest — repose from travelling. It cannot be good for him to be hurried about incessantly. It is wearing him out.”
“You do not understand them,” returned Mrs. St. John. “It is for him that I move about. He grows so languid whenever we settle down. What should you know about children, Rose? Are you a nurse, or a doctor? You are not a mother. A chacun son métier.”
“Comme vous voulez,” returned Rose, with her pretty shrug. “Charlotte, I am going to visit where I shall see something of a sort of cousin of yours — Mr. St. John.”
“Mr. St. John of Castle Wafer?” quickly asked Mrs. St. John, with more interest than she had yet displayed.
“The heir to Castle Wafer, “Frederick.”
“Oh — he,” slightingly returned Mrs. St. John, and she relapsed into apathy.
“How long shall you remain at Belport, Charlotte?” asked Rose, speaking softly, not to awaken the child.
“I don’t know yet; I shall see how the place suits George. Do you happen to know of a good sick-nurse here, Rose — English? I hear they abound.”
“I know of one,” said Rose, rather eagerly. “And she is excellent in these cases of — of—” Rose caught back the ominous word she had so nearly uttered — consumption; substituting one for it, however, that proved little better— “of wasting away. It is her spécialité.”
“Who says he is wasting away? Who says it?”
“Nay,” said Rose, “I only thought it, seeing him so thin. I dare say it’s natural to children to be thin. She is a most excellent nurse, Charlotte; a Mrs. Brayford. I saw her several times in the spring, when she was nursing Adeline de Castella.”
“What was her complaint?”
“They feared she was going into a decline. Mrs. Brayford nursed her into perfect health, and she is as strong and well now as I am. I should think she would be the very nurse to suit you, and she is a pleasant sort of woman.”
“Where can I find her?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Rose. “It can readily be ascertained, though. The concierge at Signor de Castella’s is sure to know her address. Of course, she may not be at liberty just now, Charlotte; neither may she be inclined to take a place that involves travelling.”
“Is she one of those monthly nurses?” asked Mrs. St. John. “I don’t like them.”
“No; I believe not. I will get you her address, Charlotte, and you can send to her or not, as you please. How this child starts!”
“He would lie more comfortably on a bed,” interposed Mrs. Darling, lifting him gently from Rose’s knee. “I’ll take him to Prance.”
It was what she had been longing to do — to get to Prance. For ten minutes’ conversation with the serving-woman, Mrs. Darling would have given an earldom. The servant met her at the chamber-door, and the child was laid on his bed without awaking.
“Prance, he is surely dying,” breathed Mrs. Darling, as they stood over him.
Prance glanced round, making sure there were no other listeners. “He is as surely dying, ma’am, as that his father died before him; and of the same complaint — wasting away. A month or two longer, and then — the end.”
“Your mistress does not seem to see it. Does she see it, do you think?”
“I think not. I think she really believes that he will get well.”
“Why does she go about from place to place in this restless manner?”
The woman stooped to brush a fly from George’s forehead, and she answered with her head and eyes bent down.
“She says it is for the benefit of the child: that he gets more languid and fretful when we stay quietly in a place than when we are moving about. But in her anxiety, she a little overdoes it: there’s a medium in all things. In some of the towns she has not liked the doctors, and then she has gone away immediately.”
“I wish she would come back to Alnwick,” lamented Mrs. Darling. “Pym knows the constitution of the St. Johns. No one could treat the child so well as he.”
“I wish she would!” heartily acquiesced Prance. “I wish you could persuade her—”
Prance stopped, and hastily busied herself straightening George’s petticoats. Mrs. St. John had entered the room.
But there was no persuading her to Alnwick — or to put a stop to this incessant travelling. Only a few days and she had quitted Belport again, taking her retinue with her, amidst whom was the nurse, Mrs, Brayford.
How strangely do the links in that chain we call fate, fit themselves one into the other, unconsciously to ourselves.
CHAPTER XXII.
ALL ABOUT A STUPID FRENCH MARIGOLD.
THE invitation sent to the young ladies by Madame de Castella had been given at the pressing instigation of Adeline. The nervous, anxious tones of the little notes enclosed from herself, praying them to accept it, at once proved the fact to Mary Carr.
The return of Signor de Castella to Beaufoy, and consequently the visit of the Baron de la Chasse, had been subjected to another postponement of a week; but then the time was positively fixed, and Adeline knew it would be kept. Her suspense and fears were becoming intolerable. How avoid being often in the society of the baron, when he would be the only visitor in the house? It was this grave question that suggested to her the thought of asking for the presence of her schoolfellows. Madam
e de Castella fell all innocently into the snare, and acquiesced at once. Adeline had ever been an indulged child.
It was almost impossible for Adeline to conceal her terror as the days drew on. She knew her fathers haughty, unbending character, his keen sense of honour. He would have been the last to force her into an unpalatable union, and had Adeline expressed the slightest repugnance to M. de la Chasse when it was first proposed, the affair would have been at an end. But she had cheerfully consented to it; the deeds of betrothal were signed on both sides, and M. de Castella’s word and honour had been pledged. Never, Adeline feared, would he allow that betrothal, that word to be broken; never would he consent to entertain proposals for her from another, Now that her eyes were opened, she saw how fearfully blind and hazardous had been the act by which she consented to become the wife of the Baron de la Chasse, a personal stranger. There are thousands who consent in the same unconscious haste, and know not what they do, until it is too late. It is gratifying to a young girl’s vanity to receive an offer of marriage; to anticipate an establishment of her own; to leave her companions behind. Marriage is to her a sealed book, and she is eager to penetrate its mysteries. If a voice from a judicious friend, or a still small voice in her own conscience, should whisper a warning to wait, to make sure she is on the right path ere she enter its enclosures irrevocably, both are thrust aside unheeded. So the wedding-day comes surely on; and soon the once eager careless girl awakes to her position, and beholds herself as she really is — sacrificed. She is the wife of one whom she cannot love; worse still, perhaps not respect, now that she knows him intimately: there is no sympathy between them; not a feeling, not a taste, it may be, in common. But the sacrifice was of her choosing, and she must abide by it. Deliberately, of her own free will, she tied herself to him, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, until death shall them part. She has linked herself to him by a chain which divides her from the rest of the world; every thought of her heart belongs, of right, to him; she is his companion and no other’s, and must obey his behests; at uprising and down-sitting, at the daily meals and in the midnight chamber she is his, his own, for evermore.
A strong impression, call it a presentiment if you will, had taken hold of Adeline, that the very first word of disclosure to her father, though it were but a hint of it, would be the signal for her separation from Mr. St. John. She spoke of this to him, and she wrung a promise from him that he would be for the present silent; that at least during this few days’ visit of the Baron’s he should continue to appear as he did now — an acquaintance only. Rose would be there, and St. John’s intimacy with the family, his frequent presence at Beaufoy, might be accounted for by his relationship to her, No relationship whatever in point of fact, as the reader knows; but Adeline chose to construe it into one. Mr. St. John at first hesitated to comply with her wish. It is true that he would have preferred, for reasons of his own — his debts and his estrangement from his brother — not to speak to Signor de Castella just yet; but he was given to be ultra honourable, and to maintain silence in such a case, though it were but for a week or two, jarred against his nature. Only to her imploring petition, to her tears, did he at length yield, and then conditionally. He must be guided, he said, by the behaviour of de la Chasse. “Should he attempt to offer you the smallest endearment, should he begin to whisper tender speeches in your ear, I should throw prudence to the winds, and step between you.”
“Oh, Frederick! “ she answered, her cheek a burning red, her face bent in its maidenly confusion: “endearment — tender speeches — they are not known in France, in our class of society. Of such there is no fear. The Baron will be as politely ceremonious to me as though we were ever to remain strangers.”
And Adeline was right.
Late in the afternoon of as hot and brilliant a day as the July sun ever shone upon, the carriage, containing the young-lady guests, which had been sent to Odesque to meet them, drew up at the château, in the very jaws of the lions. Mary Carr looked out There, on the broad steps, in the exact ‘spot where she had last seen him, looking as though not an hour had passed over his head since, stood Mr. St. John.
He assisted them to alight, and Adeline ran out to receive them, so charmingly lovely in her white morning dress and pink ribbons. Madame de Castella also appeared, and after a cordial welcome, ordered the coachman to speed back with haste to Odesque, or he would not be in time for the arrival of the Paris train. —
“I expect my husband and M. de la Chasse,” she explained, addressing her visitors. Mary Carr looked involuntarily at Adeline. She met the gaze, and a burning crimson rushed over her face and neck.
Before six the party had re-assembled, including Mr. St. John. They were in the yellow drawing-room, a very fine apartment, kept chiefly for show and ceremony, and one that nobody ever felt at home in. The windows overlooked the approach to the château; every one was gazing for the first appearance of the momentarily expected travellers, Adeline growing more pale, more agitated with every minute; so pale, so agitated, that she could not escape notice.
“See, see!” exclaimed old Madame de Beaufoy, hobbling to the window. “Is not that the carriage? — far off, there; — at the turn by the windmill.”
It was the carriage: the aged eyes were the quickest, after all: and it came speedily on. Two dusty-looking figures were in it, for they sat with it open. Madame de Castella and her sister hastened to the hall to receive the travellers, and the old lady thrust her head out at one of the windows. Adeline had risen in terrible agitation, and was leaning on the back of a chair. Her very lips were white. Mr. St. John advanced and bent over her.
“My dearest love,” he whispered, “you are ill, and I dare not protect you as I could wish. Be under no apprehension of any unwelcome scene with him: sooner than suffer it I will declare all.”
He took up a flacon of eau de Cologne, and saturated her handkerchief. Mary Carr was looking on. She could not hear his words; but she marked his low, earnest voice, his looks, his actions; she saw how it was from that hour. “There will be tribulation in the house, ere this shall be over!” was her mental exclamation. But she little anticipated the deep tribulation that was indeed to come.
The Baron did not make his appearance until he had been to his dressing-room. He looked very presentable when he came in, though his hair was shorter than ever, and the curled corners of his yellow moustache were longer. His greeting of Adeline was in this fashion: advancing quickly towards her until he came within three paces, he there made a dead standstill, and placing his feet in the first position, as dancing-masters say, slowly bowed his head nearly down to the ground, and in ceremonious words, “ hoped he had the honour of finding mademoiselle in perfect health.” That was all; he did not presume even to touch her hand: any such familiarity would, in good French society, be deemed the perfection of bad taste. Rose just smothered a scream of delight when she saw the bow, and gave Mr. St. John such a pinch on the arm, that the place was blue for days afterwards. But what a bow St. John received the Baron with when they were introduced — distant, haughty, and self-conscious; conscious of his own superiority. Certainly, in outward appearance, there was a wide contrast, and Mr. St. John, on this particular evening, seemed quite aware of his own personal gifts. De la Chasse was superbly dressed: a blue satin vest, curiously-fine linen of lace and embroidery, with various other magnificent et ceteras. St. John was in slight mourning attire; black clothes, a plain white waistcoat, and not a bit of finery about him; but he looked, as Rose Darling said, fit for a prince.
Dinner was announced. The Baron de la Chasse advanced to the aged mistress of the house, St. John to Madame de Castella, and Signor de Castella to Rose. Miss de Beaufoy, Adeline, and Mary Carr, went in together. It was a formal dinner, and Adeline was sick at heart.
It happened, in the course of the following morning, that the three young ladies and the Baron were alone in the western drawing-room — the one, you may remember, opening to the colonnade. The conversation flagged.
De la Chasse, though a sensible man, did not shine in that flowing, ready style of converse so natural to Frederick St. John; and Adeline seemed utterly spiritless. Mary Carr went upstairs to her chamber, but before she had been there five minutes, Rose came dancing in.
“Where have you left Adeline?” inquired Miss Carr.
“Where you did — with the Baron. I thought I might be de trop, and so came away. It is not pleasant to reflect that you may be spoiling a scene, all tenderness and sweetmeats, as Charlotte Singleton calls it. I say, though, Mary, did you see St. John whispering last night to her at the piano, whilst he was pretending to be engaged turning over for me? It’s satisfactory to have two strings to one’s bow.”
Before another word could be said, in rushed Adeline, in high excitement. “Mary! Rose! — Rose! dear Mary! never you leave me alone with that man again! Promise it! — promise it to me!”
“What is it? What has he done?” they asked, in excessive astonishment.
“He has done nothing. But I dare not be alone with him, lest he should talk of the future. He has been inquiring after the engagement-ring. Hush! do not ask me any questions now,” concluded Adeline. “I wish to Heaven, Rose, you could induce the Baron to fall in love with you!”
“Much obliged for the transfer,” said Rose, with a laugh. “Perhaps you’ll get him first to dye those appendages to his face: yellow is not a favourite colour of mine.”
De la Chasse intended to remain but a week. He purposed leaving on Tuesday morning. His visit was passing quietly enough: there had been no outbreak between him and St. John, only excessive coolness. Had de la Chasse been an Englishman, an explanation could scarcely have been avoided; for an Englishman would inevitably, by speech, manner, or action, have shown that he was the young lady’s lover: but in France these things are managed differently.
Madame de Beaufoy issued invitations for Monday evening to as many neighbours as were within driving-distance. A soirée dansante, the cards said, when they went out.