Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “You — will — come — to me — in heaven?”

  Barely had the words left her lips — and they were the last that either of them heard her utter — when Louise, ‘with a solemn face, full of mighty importance, threw the corridor door wide open, and whispered something which only the nurse caught. She jumped up, thrust her chair behind her, and dropped down upon her knees where she stood.

  “What in the world has taken her?” ejaculated Rose.

  “Don’t you understand?” was Mary’s hurried answer, drawing Rose after her, and escaping to the drawing-room.

  They saw it through the open door. The line of priests, in their white robes, coming up the stairs; the silver crucifix borne before them; the “Bon Dieu” sacredly covered from observation. Louise, sank on her knees in the passage, as the nurse had done in the room, and they swept past her with solemn step, towards Adeline’s chamber, looking neither to the right nor left. They had come to bestow absolution, according to the rights of the Roman Catholic faith — to administer to her the Sacrament of the dying.

  CHAPTER XXX.

  THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD.

  IT was a sad day to describe — that next one. Adeline had died a little before midnight, fully conscious to the last, and quite peaceful; all her relatives, and they only, surrounding her bed.

  Not only a sad day to describe, but a strange one; and I hardly know how to do it. You may look upon its chief incident as a disagreeable fiction; but it was sober fact, truthful reality. Perhaps you have never met with the like in your experience? I will transcribe it for you as exactly and faithfully as I can. The anecdotes of the same nature mentioned in the last chapter, were all facts too.

  Louise was right: the corpse of Adeline de Castella was to hold a reception.

  It was rumoured in the house that Signor de Castella was averse to the exhibition, but yielded the concession to his broken-hearted wife. Old Madame de Beaufoy made no secret of being against it; every English idea within her revolted from it. But Madame de Castella carried her point. There was perhaps a negative soothing to her wild grief in the reflection that before her beautiful and idolized child should be hidden away for all time, the world would once more look upon her, arrayed in all the pomp and splendour of life.

  Early in the morning — the printers had been set to work betimes — the black-bordered death-circulars went forth to Belport.

  “Monsieur et Madame de Castella; Madame de Beaufoy; Mademoiselle de Beaufoy:

  “Ont l’honneur de vous faire part de la perte douloureuse qu’ils viennent de faire en la personne de Mademoiselle Adeline Luisa de Castella, leur fille, petite fille, et nièce; décédée à Belport le 8 Janvier, à l’age de 19 ans.

  “Priez pour elle.”

  The invitations to the reception — or it may be more correct to say the intimations that it was to be held, for no invitations went out — were conveyed privately to the houses of friends by one or other of the Castella servants; by word of mouth, not officially. And I can tell you that it caused a commotion in the town, not forgotten yet.

  It was about midday when Silva came to a little boudoir on the ground-floor, tenanted by Rose and Mary only, for the family kept their chambers. He said one of Madame de Nino’s maid-servants was asking to see Miss Darling.

  “She can come in, Silva,” said Rose, getting up from her low chair by the fire, and passing her hand across her heavy eyes.

  The woman came in — Julie. She handed a packet to Rose, which the latter divined at once must be the one her brother had written about. “It was left at the school for you this morning, mademoiselle.”

  “Who left it?” asked Rose.

  “A tall handsome Englishman, for I happened to answer the gate myself,” responded Julie. “He inquired for you, mademoiselle, and when I said you were not with us now, but visiting in the town, he handed in his card. You’ll see it if you turn the parcel, Mademoiselle Rose: I slipped it inside the string for safety, coming along.”

  Rose scarcely needed to look at the card. She knew it was Frederick St. John’s.”

  “Did he say where he was staying? — at what hotel?”

  “He said nothing else, mademoiselle, but just left the parcel and card, with his compliments. Madame charged me to ask you, mesdemoiselles, at what hour it would be best for her to come to see the poor young lady?” continued Julie, dropping her voice.

  “It begins at two, Julie. Any time between that hour and five.”

  “I wish I might come and see her too!” cried Julie. “I think us servants who served her so long at Madame de Nino’s, might be allowed it.”

  “I dare say you might,” said Rose. “Of course, you might. Tell Madame I say so.”

  “Julie,” interposed Mary Carr, “I shall see her, of course; it would be looked upon as a slight in the house if I did not; but I can tell you I would rather walk ten miles away from it.”

  “But think of the beautiful sight it will be, Mademoiselle Carr!” remonstrated Julie. “We hear she is to wear her real wedding-dress — to be adorned with flowers and jewels. Ah, poor, poor thing!” broke off the girl, giving way to her ready tears. “But a few months ago, well and happy, and going to be married; and now, dead.”

  “Mary,” said Rose, when they were alone, “I shall go out and find him, now I know he is in the town. Will you come?”

  Mary Carr hesitated. “Would it be a proper thing, Rose, for us to go about to hotels, inquiring after gentlemen? I don’t much like it.”

  “We have to do many things in this life that we ‘don’t like,’” was Rose’s sarcastic answer. “Do you fear the hotels would eat you?”

  “It is not the thing.”

  “Not for you, I dare say, so you can stay away: I’m sorry I asked. I promised that poor girl I would bring him to see her, were there any possibility of doing it; and I will.”

  “Then I shall go with you.”

  “Oh,” retorted Rose.

  The preparations for the great event were all but completed. The preparations! I feel nearly as ill, now that I am writing it, as I felt then; and some years have gone by. The large salon, next to the room in which she died, was laid out for the visitors, part of the furniture removed, and a barrier placed down the middle — a space being left clear at either end. It was a very long, large room, and so far suitable. She — Adeline — was placed against the wall at the far end, upright, standing, facing the company who were to come in, as if waiting to receive them and give them welcome. I cannot tell you how they fixed and supported her: I never asked then; I would as little ask now; I knew none of the details; the broad facts were enough.

  As Mary Carr went creeping upstairs to put on her bonnet, she heard voices in the death-chamber, and looked in. They were dressing Adeline. The French nurse was standing before the upright corpse, supporting it on her shoulder, her own face turned aside from it; and the hairdresser stood behind, dressing the hair. Louise seemed to be helping to hold the dead weight; Susanne handed hair-pins to the man. If ever there was a revolting task on earth, that seemed one; and Mary Carr turned sick as she hastily closed the door again, and leaned against the wall to recover, if that might be, from her faintness.

  THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD.

  “What hotel do you mean to try?” she inquired, when she went out with Rose into the broad daylight, a welcome relief from the darkened house and what was being transacted in it.

  “I shall try them all in succession, until I find him,” returned Rose. “I think he must use the Hôtel des Bains. I know Frank does.”

  Rose bent her steps towards that renowned hostelry, and turned boldly into the yard. A man came forward with a cloth on his arm, waiter fashion.

  “Monsieur de Saint John,” she began, “est-il descendu ici?”

  The man stammered something in wretched French, “comprenais pas,” and Rose found he was a very native Englishman.

  Mr. St. John was staying there, but was going on to Paris in the evening. He was out just then.


  “Out!” cried Rose, not expecting this check to her impatience. “Where’s he gone?”

  Of course the waiter could not say where. Rose intimated that her business was of importance; that she must see him. The group stood looking at each other in indecision.

  “If you would like to go to his room and wait, ladies, I have the key,” suggested the man. “It is only on the first floor.”

  “What is to be done, Mary Carr?” cried Rose, tapping her foot in pettish annoyance.

  “Don’t ask me. It is your expedition, not mine.”

  What Rose would have done, is uncertain. She was looking at the man in hesitation, perhaps thinking of the room and the key, when who should turn into the yard with a light quick step but Mr. St. John himself Not changed — not a whit changed. The same high bearing, the same distinguished form and face, the same frank manners, possessing for all so irresistible a fascination.

  Rose, in a somewhat confused, anything but an explanatory, greeting — for she would not tell him the truth of what she wanted, lest he should decline it — said she had come to request him to accompany her for a short time. He answered that he was at her service, and in another moment the three were walking down the street together.

  “Of all the sticklers for etiquette, I think Mary Carr’s the worst,” began Rose. “I wonder she does not apply for a post as maid-of-honour at court. The man asked us to go and wait in your rooms, and I should have gone had you not come in. She looked fit to faint at the bare idea.”

  Mr. St. John laughed; his old low musical laugh.

  “Where would have been the harm?” went on Rose. “We are cousins, you know.”

  “Of course we are,” said Mr. St. John. “I thought you both expected to have been in England before this?”

  “We shall be there shortly now. At least, I shall. Mary, I believe, is going first to Holland. And you? You are going to Paris, we hear.”

  “Yes, but not to stay. My old roving love of travel has come upon me, and I think I shall gratify it. A friend of mine leaves Paris next week for a prolonged exploration of the Holy Land, and I feel inclined to accompany him.”

  “It does not look as though he were on the point of marrying Sarah Beauclerc,” thought Rose to herself. For a wonder, she did not put the question.

  But not a word of inquiry from him after Adeline! And yet, only a few months before, they had been on the nearest and dearest terms, but a few hours removed from the closest tie that can exist in this world — that of man and wife. Oh, the changes that take place in this transitory world of ours. She was dead, sleeping well after life’s fitful fever; and he was walking there in all the pomp and pride of existence, haughtily indifferent, never unbending so far as to ask whether she was married to another, whether she was living or dead.

  And so they reached the residence of Signor de Castella, and entered the courtyard, St. John unconscious where he was going. He had never gone to the house but once, and then it was at night, and in Sir Sandy Maxwell’s carriage. The hall-door was placed wide open. Silva stood on one side of it, bareheaded, another servant opposite to him, and as the various visitors passed between them, they bowed to each group in silence. It was the manner of receiving them. Mr. St. John, talking with Rose, advanced close to the door; but when he caught sight of Silva, he drew back. The old man looked at him with a pleasant look: St. John had always been a favourite with the Castella servants. Mary Carr left them then, and ran upstairs.

  “Why have you brought me here?” he demanded of Rose. “This is Signor de Castella’s!”

  “I have not brought you without a motive, Mr. St. John. Pray come in with me.”

  “You must excuse me,” he said, very coldly.

  “I cannot,” answered Rose. “Do you think I should go dancing after you to the hotels, shocking Mary Carr and the waiters out of their notions of propriety, without an urgent motive? Pray come along: we are obstructing the entrance.” Mr. St. John indeed saw that a group of several ladies were gathered close behind him, waiting to go in. He stepped inside the hall — he had no other alternative — and so allowed them to pass. They moved noiselessly towards the broad staircase; but he drew aside with Rose.

  “Rose, this is beyond a joke,” he said. “Why did you bring me here? I will wish you good morning.”

  “Indeed,” she murmured, clasping her agitated hands on his arm, in her fear lest, after all, he should escape her, “this is no joke. Do you suppose Mary Carr would lend herself to one? and she came with me. Pray come upstairs with me, Mr. St. John.”

  “You forget,” he began, in answer more to her evident excitement than to her words, “that — putting aside any objection I may experience — my presence here may not be acceptable to the family.”

  “You will not see the family. They are not visible to-day.”

  “Who are all these people going up the stairs?” he said, looking on in amazement, as more groups were silently bowed in by Silva. “It seems like a reception.”

  “It is one,” said Rose: “nevertheless the family do not hold it. There comes Madame de Nino! She is directing those strict eyes of hers towards us, and I shall catch a sharp lecture for standing whispering with you. Do come, Mr. St. John.”

  “I cannot understand this, Rose. These visitors, flocking to the house, while, you say, the family are not visible! Why do they come, then? Why do you wish me to go up?”

  “There’s — there’s — a show upstairs to-day,” stammered Rose “That is why they come. And I want you to see it.”

  “A flower-show?” said Mr. St. John, somewhat mockingly. “A faded one,” murmured Rose, as she took his hand, and drew him towards the staircase.

  His manner was hesitating, his step reluctant; and but for the young lady’s pertinacity, which he could not resist without downright rudeness, he had certainly retreated. Involuntarily, he could not tell why or wherefore, the remembrance of a past scene came rushing to his mind; when he, Frederick St. John, had in like manner forced a resisting spirit up the stairs and into the room of a college-boy who was dying.

  At the head of the stairs they met Mary Carr, who held out a small sealed packet.

  “A commission was intrusted to me yesterday, Mr. St. John,” she said, “that I would deliver this into your own hands. I have also a message—”

  “Which you can give him presently,” interrupted Rose.

  He glanced at the packet; he glanced at the seal, “A. L. de C.;” he looked at the other side, at the strange, sprawling address.

  “Not a very elegant superscription,” he observed, carelessly, as he slipped the parcel into the breast-pocket of his coat. “I don’t recognize the handwriting.”

  “Yet you were once familiar with it, Mr. St. John.’

  “Oh, never!” answered he. “Not, certainly, to my recollection.”

  They were now at the door of the drawing-room. Rose, feeling a sick terror at the thought of what she was going to behold, laid her hand momentarily on Mr. St. John, as if doubting her own capability to support herself.

  “Are you ill?” he inquired, looking at her pale face.

  “A slight faintness,” she murmured. “It will go off.”

  It was in front of them, at the other end of the room as they entered. It! But they could not see it distinctly for a moment together, so many persons were pushing on before them. Mr. St. John, who was taller than most persons present, obtained a more distinct view than Rose.

  “Who is that — standing yonder — receiving the company?” he asked hastily. “It looks like — no; it cannot be. Is it Adeline?”

  “Yes, it is Adeline de Castella,” replied Rose, under her breath, her teeth chattering. “She is holding her reception.”

  Adeline de Castella. Did the name strike oddly upon Mr. St. John? But if it did, how then came he not to ask why it was not Adeline de la Chasse?

  “You have deceived me, Miss Darling,” he said in severe tones; “you assured me the family were not here. What means a
ll this?”

  “They are not here,” whispered Rose, whose face and lips were now as white as those of the dead.

  “Not here! There stands Adeline.”

  “Yes, true; Adeline,” she murmured. “But she will not speak to you. You — you will pass and look at her: as we look at a picture. You can’t go back now, if you would: see the throng. Trust me for once,” she added, as she seized his arm: “Adeline will not speak to you — she will not, as I live and breathe.”

  Partly from the extreme difficulty of retreating, for they were in the line of advance, not in that formed for returning according to the arrangements of the room, partly in compliance with Rose Darling’s agitated earnestness, and partly yielding to his own curiosity, which was becoming intensely excited, Mr. St. John continued his way, ever and anon catching a glimpse of the rigid form opposite, before which all were filing.

  “It cannot be Adeline!” he exclaimed, involuntarily. “And yet it is like her! Who is it? What is it? How strange she looks!”

  “She has been ill, you see,” shivered Rose, “and is much attenuated. But it is Adeline.”

  They were nearly up with her. Rose, in her faintness, not having yet dared to look at the sight, clung to the arm of Mr. St. John. He was gazing on her — Adeline; and his face, never very rosy, had turned of a yet paler hue than common.

  Oh, the rich and flowing robes in which they had decked her! white satin, covered with costly lace; white ribbons, white flowers, everything about her white; the festive attire of a bride adorning the upright dead, and that dead worn and wasted! A narrow band of white satin was passed tightly under the chin, to keep the jaw from falling, but it was partly hidden by the hair and the wreath of flowers, and the veil that floated behind her. Never, in health, had those beautiful ringlets been seen on Adeline as they were set forth now, to shade those hollow cheeks: but all the richness of her dress and the flowing hair, all the flowers and the costly lace, could not conceal the ghastliness of the features, or soften the fixed stare of the glazed eyes. Yet, in the contour of the face, there was something still inexpressibly beautiful. To a stranger entering the room, unsuspecting the truth, as Mr. St. John, she looked like one fearfully ill, fearfully strange: and how was Mr. St. John, who had never heard of the custom, to divine the truth? Did the idea occur to him that Adeline was standing in the very spot where he had first met her, a year before, when the French marigold in his button-hole was accidentally caught by her? Did the strange gloomy silence strike ominously upon him; putting him in mind of a funeral or a lying-in-state, rather than a gay reception?