by Ellen Wood
Mary Carr opened the letter. It contained a few polite words from Mr. St. John, requesting her to convey the enclosed one to Adeline at a convenient opportunity.
“You see how it is?” faltered Adeline to her.
“I have seen it long, Adeline.” —
Adeline carried the letter to her chamber to read, bolting the door that she might be free from interruption. It was a long letter, written far more sensibly than are love-epistles in general, for it was impossible to Mr. St. John to write otherwise; but there was a vein of impassioned tenderness running through it, implied rather than expressed, which surely ought to have satisfied even Adeline. But the bitter doubts imparted by Rose that fatal night cast their shadow over all. Not a moment of peace or happiness had she known since. Her visions by day, her dreams by night, were crowded by images of Frederick St. John, faithless to her, happy with another. Nor did Sarah Beauclerc want a “shape to the mind.” The day after St. John’s departure, they were looking over the last year’s “Book of Beauty,” when Rose suddenly exclaimed, as she came to one, “This is very like Sarah Beauclerc!”
“It was great nonsense, Rose, that tale you were telling us!” cried Adeline, with a desperate struggle to speak calmly.
“It was sober sense, and sober truth,” retorted Rose.
“Not it,” said Mary Carr. “It was but a flirtation, Rose.”
“Very likely,” assented Rose, volatile as usual. “Being an attractive man, Mr. Frederick St. John no doubt goes in for the game, roaming from flower to flower, a very butterfly, kissing all, and settling upon none.” And she brought her careless speech to a conclusion with the first lines of an old song, once in great vogue at Madame de Nino’s: —
“The butterfly was a gentleman
Of no very good repute;
And he roved in the sunshine all day long,
In his scarlet and purple suit.
And he left his lady wife at home
In her own secluded bower,
Whilst he, like a bachelor, flirted about,
With a kiss for every flower.”
Adeline gazed at the portrait. It was that of a fair girlish face, wearing a peculiarly sweet look of youth and innocence, blended with pride. No impartial observer could have pronounced it so lovely as her own, but the jealous film just now before her eyes caused her to take an exaggerated view of its charms, and to see in it something more than loveliness. It may have been little, if at all, like the young lady to whom Rose compared it; but no matter: to Adeline it was Sarah Beauclerc and no Other, and from that moment the image fixed itself indelibly in her mind as that of her envied rival. And yet she believed in Mr. St. John; she knew he was seeking to win herself for his wife! Truly they are unfathomable, the ways and fears of jealousy.
At length, in her intolerable misery and suspense, she took courage, in one of her letters to him, to hint at his former intimacy with Sarah Beauclerc. What he answered was never disclosed by Adeline; but that it must have been satisfactory, dispelling even her strong jealousy, may be judged from the significant fact that her face grew radiant again.
Meanwhile Mr. St. John lingered at his mother’s bedside in London. All danger was over; and in point of fact the accident had not been so severe as was at first feared. Lady Anne Saville was with her. Isaac St. John was ill at Castle Wafer. It was Frederick’s intention to pay his brother a visit ere he returned to France, and get his sanction to the proposals he intended to carry back to M. de. Castella. But this visit was frustrated. —
One afternoon the inmates of Beaufoy were startled by the unexpected arrival of the Baron de la Chasse. Wishing to consult M. de Castella on a little matter of business, he explained, he had done himself the honour and pleasure to come personally, instead of writing. All expressed themselves delighted to see him, except one; and she was nearly beside herself with consternation. Terrified and dismayed Adeline indeed was; and she wrote to Mr. St. John before she slept.
An evening or two later, the whole party were assembled in the billiard-room; soon about to separate for the night. A night of intense heat, but there was a strong breeze, and it blew in through the open windows, fluttering the lights and causing the wax to drop. It was nearly eleven o’clock: the last game was being finished — but the Baron was a remarkably slow, deliberate player — when, without the slightest preparation, the door opened, and Mr. St. John walked in. Adeline started from her seat, scarcely suppressing an involuntary cry; she had not thought he would be back so soon. It seemed that her letter had surprised him in the act of setting out for Castle Wafer. He turned his steps to the Continent instead.
He looked very well; very handsome. It seemed to strike them all, after this short absence, though he had no advantages from dress, being in his travelling attire. How could Adeline be blamed for loving him? A hundred inquiries were made after Mrs. St. John. She was quite out of danger, he answered, and progressing towards recovery.
“Will you allow me the honour of half-an-hour’s interview with you to-morrow morning, sir?” he said, addressing M. de Castella, in a tone which the whole room might hear.
“Certainly,” returned M. de Castella. But he looked up, as if surprised. “Name your hour.”
“Ten o’clock,” concluded Mr. St. John. And he took his leave.
The interview the following morning in Signor de Castella’s cabinet lasted an hour. An hour! — and Adeline in suspense all that time. She could not remain for an instant in one place — now upstairs, now down. She was crossing the hall, for about the hundredth time, when the cabinet door opened, and Mr. St. John came out. He seized her hand and took her into the yellow drawing-room. She trembled violently from head to foot, just as she had trembled the night of his departure for England. It was the first moment of their being alone together, and he embraced her tenderly, and held her to his heart.
“You have bad news for me!” she said, at length. “We are to be separated!”
“We will not be separated, Adeline. Strange! strange!” he continued, as he paced the room, “that people can be so infatuated as to fancy an engagement of form must necessarily imply an engagement of hearts! M. de Castella does not understand — he cannot understand that your happiness is at stake. In short, he laughed at that.”
“Is he very angry?”
“No; but vexed. I have not time now to relate to you all that passed, liable as we are to interruption. I told him that the passion which had arisen between us was not of will — that I had not purposely placed myself in your path to gain your love — that we had been thrown together by circumstances, and thus it had arisen. I pointed out that no blame could by any possibility attach to you, though it might be due to me; for I did not deny that when I saw an attachment was growing up between us, I might have flown before it was irrevocably planted, and did not.”
“Did you part in anger?” she asked.
“On the contrary. M. de Castella is anxious to treat the affair as a jest, and hinted that it might be dropped as such. I do believe he considers it one, for he asked me to dinner.”
“Frederick! You will surely come?”
“I shall come, Adeline, for your sake.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, with à shiver, “how will it end?”
“My dearest,” he said earnestly, “you must be calm. Fear nothing, now I am by you. Rely upon it, you shall be my wife.”
“Mr. St. John,” cried Rose, as they went into the west drawing-room, “you have brought some music for me, a writing-case for Mary Carr, but what have you brought for Adeline?”
“Myself,” he quietly answered.
“There’s many a true word spoken in jest,” said Rose, with a laugh. “You don’t think you have been taking me in all this time, Mr. St. John, with your letters to Mary Carr, and her envelopes back again? Bah! pas si bête.”
She went, waltzing, on to the colonnade. Mr. St. John turned to Miss Carr, and thanked her for the very thing Rose had named. “I presume you know,” he said, “that our cor
respondence was perfectly justified, though I did not wish it declared until my return — that we are affianced to each other?” —
“I have feared it some time, Mr. St. John.”
“Feared it?”
“Yes. Adeline is promised to another: and the French look upon such engagements as sacred.”
“In a general way. But there are cases of exception. We have your good wishes, I hope?”
“Indeed you have. For I fear it may be a matter of life or death to Adeline — according as it may be decided. She is a sensitive plant.”
“And shall be cherished as one.”
It was a most uncomfortable dinner that day. Mr. St. John was present, looking quiet and resolute; de la Chasse furious. During the afternoon some inkling of the pretensions of Mr. St. John had oozed out, and de la Chasse aspersed him in his absence before them all. After dinner, Signor de Castella led the way to the billiard-room, hoping, probably, that the knocking about of balls might dissipate the constraint. But it came to an open rupture. Some difference of opinion arose about the game. St. John was haughty and unbending: de la Chasse gave way to his anger, and so far forgot himself as personally to attack, by words, Mr. St. John. “A spendthrift, who had run through his own fortune, to come hunting after Adeline’s—”
“Vous êtes menteur!” shouted Mr. St. John, forgetting his manners, and turning short upon the Baron. But what further he might have said was stopped by Adeline, who, terrified out of self-control, darted across the room, and, touching St. John’s arm, whispered him to be calm for her sake. De la Chasse advanced and offered his hand to remove Adeline, but St. John held her by him in haughty defiance.
“Mademoiselle, you are degrading yourself!” said M. de la Chasse. “Come from his side.”
There was no answer from St. John, save a quiet smile of power, and his retaining hold of Adeline. The Baron looked at M. de Castella, but the scene had really passed so quickly that the latter had found no breath to interfere. “Is it fit that my promised wife should thus be subjected to insult in my presence, sir?” he asked.
“Adeline,” interposed M. de Castella, sternly, “return to your mother.”
“She is my promised wife,” said Mr. St. John to the Baron, “and I have a right to retain her here — the right of affection. A right that you will never have.”
De la Chasse was foaming — presenting a very contrast to the cool equanimity of Mr. St. John. “I will not bandy words with him: I will not. Signor de Castella, when your salon shall be freed from that man, I will re-enter it.”
Wheeling round upon his heel, he went out, banging the door after him. For a moment there was silence: St. John, his hold still on Adeline, remained at the far end of the room; Signor de Castella, half paralyzed with the scandal, was near the billiard-table; the rest were in a group by the crimson ottoman, Agnes de Beaufoy crossing herself perpetually, Madame de Castella the very image of dismay.
“Mademoiselle,” spoke the Signor to his daughter, who was sobbing aloud in her terror and agitation, “do you dare to disobey me? I told you to go to your mother.”
“She does not disobey you, sir, and never would do so willingly,” returned Mr. St. John. “The fault was mine.”
He released his hold on Adeline as he spoke, took her hand with almost ceremonious politeness, and conducted her across the room to the side of her mother.
“These scenes must be put a stop to, Mr. St. John,” cried the Signor. “You received my answer this morning on the subject.”
“Only to re-enter upon it, sir. The particulars which I spared then, I will relate now.”
“I do not wish to hear them,” said Signor de Castella, speaking irritably.
“Sir,” calmly interposed Mr. St. John, “I demand it as a right. The Baron has been freely remarking upon me and my conduct to-day, I understand, in the hearing of all now present, and I must be permitted to justify myself.”
“You must allow for the feeling of irritation on the Baron’s part. You are neither devoid of cool judgment nor sound sense, Mr. St. John.”
“That is just what I have allowed for,” replied Mr. St. John, frankly, “He feels, no doubt, that he is an injured man; and so I have been willing to show him consideration. Any other man, speaking of me as de la Chasse has done, would have — have — been treated differently.”
“Let this unpleasant matter be dropped, Mr. St. John,” was the resolute answer.
“Sir, I beg you to listen to my explanation; I ask it you in courtesy: it shall be given without disguise. When I came of age, I obtained possession of a handsome fortune. It is all dissipated. I was not free from the faults of youth, common to my inexperience and rank, and I was as extravagant as my worst enemy could wish. But I solemnly assert that I never have been guilty of a bad thought, of a dishonourable action. There is not a man or woman living, who can bring a word of reproach against me, save that of excessive imprudence in regard to my money — and a good part of that went to help those who wanted it worse than I do. Well, about a twelvemonth ago, I was cleared out, and had liabilities to the amount of a few thousands besides—”
“Pray do not enter upon these details, Mr. St. John,” interrupted Signor de Castella.
“Sir, I must go on — with your permission. My brother, Mr. Isaac St-. John, sent for me to Castle Wafer. He pointed out to me the errors of my career: bade me reflect upon the heedless course I was pursuing. I had been reflecting on it, had become quite as awake to its ills as he could be, and I had firmly resolved that it should end: but to a man deep in debt, good resolutions are sometimes difficult to carry out. My brother offered to set me free; making it a condition that I should marry. He proposed in that case to give up to me Castle Wafer — it has always been his intention to do so when I married — and a very liberal settlement he offered to make on my wife, whom they had already fixed upon—”
“Was it Sarah Beauclerc?” interrupted Rose, who never lost her equanimity in her life.
“It was my cousin Anne,” resumed Mr. St. John, with scarcely a glance at Rose. “But the marriage suited neither her nor me. She was engaged, unknown to her friends, to Captain Saville, and I was keeping her secret. I took upon myself all the brunt of the refusal — for Captain Saville’s position, at that period, did not justify his aspiring openly to Lady Anne St. John — and informed my brother I could not marry Anne. High words rose between us; we parted in anger, and I returned to London. Just then my mother’s sister died, leaving me some money. It was not very much; but it was sufficient to pay my debts, and to this purpose it is being applied, as it is realized. By next November every shilling I owe will be discharged. I should have preferred not appearing again before my brother until I was a free man, but circumstances have ordered it otherwise. I was about setting out for Castle Wafer the day information reached me that de la Chasse had again made his appearance here, and I came off at once, without the credentials I should otherwise have brought with me. But you cannot doubt me, M. de Castella?”
“Doubt what?”
“My ability — my power — to offer a suitable position to your daughter.”
“Sir, the question cannot arise. Though I should very much doubt it. My daughter is not Lady Anne St. John.”
“I should have added that Lady Anne is married; a change having occurred in Captain Saville’s prospects; and she has cleared up the past to Isaac. My brother is most anxious to be reconciled to me. And I can take upon myself to say that all the favourable projects and settlements he proposed for Lady Anne, will be renewed for Adeline.”
“Then you would take upon yourself to say too much, Mr. St. John: you cannot answer for another. But to what end pursue this unprofitable conversation? My daughter is promised to the Baron de la Chasse, and no other man will she marry.”
“Sir,” cried Mr. St. John, speaking with agitation, “will you answer me one question? If I were in a position to offer Adeline ample settlements; to take her to Castle Wafer as her present home — and you know
it must eventually descend to me — would you consider me a suitable parti for her?”
“It is a question that never can arise.”
“I pray you answer it me — in courtesy,” pleaded Mr. St. John. “Would you deem me eligible in a worldly point of view?”
“Certainly. It is an alliance that a higher family than mine might aspire to.”
“Then, sir, I return this night to England. And will not again present myself to you, until I come armed with these credentials.” —
“Absurd! absurd!” ejaculated Signor de Castella, whilst Adeline uttered a smothered cry of fear. “I have allowed this conversation to go on, out of respect to you, Mr. St. John, but I beg to tell you, once for all, that Adeline never can be yours.”
“I will not urge the subject further at present,” said Mr. St. John, as he held out his hand to bid adieu to Madame de Castella. “We will resume it on my return from England.”
“You surely do not mean to persist in this insane journey?” abruptly spoke M. de Castella.
“Signor de Castella,” said Mr. St. John, his pale face and his deliberate manner alike expressive of resolute firmness, “I will not resign your daughter. If I could forget my own feelings, I must remember hers. To marry her to de la Chasse would be to abandon her to the grave. She is not strong; you know it; not fitted to battle with misery. Adeline,” he added, turning to her, for she was sobbing hysterically, “why this distress? I have repeatedly assured you, when your fears of these explanations were great, that I would never resign you to de la Chasse, or to any other. Hear me repeat that assertion in the presence of your parents — by the help of Heaven, my love, you shall be my wife.”
“Meanwhile,” said M. de Castella, sarcastically, “as you are yet, at least, under my authority, Adeline, permit me to suggest that you retire from this room.”
She rose obediently, and went towards the door, sobbing.
“A moment,” cried Mr. St. John, deprecatingly, “if it is from my presence you would send her. I am going myself. Adieu to all.”