Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  The return of this very unassuming, but very excellent woman, was hailed with joy, not only by her brother and her son, but by that son’s discerning patroness also, who welcomed her rather as a greatly valued equal, and friend, than as the mother of a dependent.

  Nor did Gertrude appear in any degree to have forgotten her; they had been great friends before the departure of Madame Odenthal, and they became great Mends again, immediately after her return.

  The situation of Madame de Schwanberg was in many respects a very singular one. She was a very great lady; the mistress of a magnificent residence, of a large, attached, and profoundly obedient household; and her noble lord and master was almost obsequious in his manners and address to her. Moreover, her highly-favoured and highly-esteemed protégé, Rupert, contemplated her as the most admirable human being that it was possible for nature to produce; and better still, her dearly-loved child loved her in return, even as she deserved to be loved Yet, with all this, the Baroness von Schwanberg had not one single human being within reach of conversation, to whom she did, or could with propriety, open her heart, upon subjects of the greatest importance and highest interest.

  Though of a Roman Catholic family, and, until the period at which her early marriage took place, brought up according to the usual routine and discipline of that church, the Baroness von Schwanberg, in common with a vast number of quiet, meditative, reading people, was no more a believer in the Roman Catholic religion, than in that of Johanna Southcote.

  But to a woman of sane judgment, placed in such a position as I have described hers to have been, the idea of proclaiming, and preaching a faith, in opposition to that professed by all around her, would have been a mischievous, as well as a vain attempt. She might have disturbed many spirits, without enlightening one; and if this very rational decision had not sufficed to keep her quiet, she would probably have been so from the habit she had naturally fallen into, from the peculiarities of her noble husband’s conversational tone, of never uttering any opinions at all.

  She had indeed much to make this quiet course easy to her; for in the first place she was a very great lady, and in the next, she was rather a sickly lady; and for one or both of these reasons, no one who had ever held the situation of confessor at Schloss Schwanberg, from the time she was installed as its mistress, had ever troubled her about any ceremonies either irregularly performed, or altogether forgotten.

  And, indeed, upon the doctrine that man and wife are one, it would not have been reasonable for the spiritual director of the castle to complain; for its master delighted in ceremonies, as sincerely as its mistress contemned them; and as her offences were only those of very unostentatious omission, while his merits were of a nature and style precisely the reverse, it had never been considered necessary to take any notice of her peculiarities.

  But although thus quietly permitted to think and to believe for herself, she had often wished to find some friend who could think and believe with her; and one great reason for her so wishing, arose from her doubts respecting the propriety of teaching Gertrude to feel the fallacy of the religion, to the ceremonies of which she had been accustomed.

  The Baroness Schwanberg was perfectly aware, that, despite the unity of truth, and the ever clear difference between right and wrong, there might be such a dilemma as a divided duty; and, in truth, she felt that her own theories on the subject of religion were much better calculated to satisfy her own honest conscience, than to famish a ritual for the guidance of her daughter. She was aware, too, that she was herself very profoundly ignorant of the value of the respective authorities upon which her own faith, and that of her husband, was founded; and she shrunk from the awful responsibility of deciding for her child on so very momentous a subject.

  It is necessary so far to describe the state of Madame de Schwanberg’s feelings on this subject, in order to make the pleasure she had felt from her brief communion with Madame Odenthal at all intelligible. She had no difficulty in perceiving that she was neither an ignorant, nor an ordinary-minded woman, and moreover it was very evident that she was an ENGLISH Protestant; and all this was quite enough to make the solitary-hearted lady of the castle look forward to frequent companionship with her, with a degree of satisfaction which, considering her station, would have appeared to the baron, could he have been made aware of it, as an unmistakable symptom of insanity.

  But, unfortunately for his deeply disappointed wife, Madame Odenthal was summoned to her sick sister within so short a time after this promising conversation had taken place, that all hopes of renewing it seemed at an end.

  Her absence had lasted nearly four years, nevertheless the interval had not been long enough to have caused her to be forgotten; and it was with very genuine and cordial satisfaction that she was welcomed by the baroness when she came to enquire for her health, and to thank her for all the kindness which had been bestowed upon Rupert.

  There was now, to say the least of it, quite as earnest a wish on the part of the lady of the castle to converse freely with the mother of its librarian, as there had ever been; but even now this was not to be achieved without difficulty; for, excepting when Gertrude was riding with her father, the mother and daughter were rarely separated; and as she might wish to converse on many points with her humble counsellor in a manner which might startle the still (ostensibly) Roman Catholic Gertrude, it was quite necessary to her purpose that they should be tête-à-tête.

  It was not long, however, before a severe illness which attacked the baroness, furnished only too good a reason for her entreating Madame Odenthal to make the castle her principle abode. A violent cold, caught while taking shelter from a sudden storm in a bam, where she was exposed to a strong current of air, had attacked her chest; and she was ordered by her medical attendants to confine herself during the winter to the warm dressing-room, upon which her own apartment opened.

  “While submitting to this discipline, her malady seemed to abate, her cough become less troublesome, and the feverish symptoms less alarming; but although by no means of a complaining temper, she could not but confess, that the confinement was very irksome to her.

  Gertrude implored very earnestly that she might share her mother’s retreat; but as both father and mother declared that this could, on no account, be permitted, excepting for a stipulated length of time every day; she consented to the regulation, on condition that Madame Odenthal were invited to take her place in the sick room, when she was herself absent.

  “If your papa approves it, my dear Gertrude, I will very willingly consent to this condition,” replied the baroness; “she is very kind, and very gentle, and I shall like to have her with me extremely.”

  “Then that settles the thing at once,” replied the baron, with an air of great satisfaction. “It is a very remarkable thing, my dear lady,” he continued, addressing the baroness, with a very condescending smile; “but by some extraordinary peculiarity of character, our daughter never does propose anything which does not, on examination, prove to be exactly the best thing, under the circumstances, that could be proposed. I have no doubt, that race, and inherited talent, have a good deal to do with this; and it is a species of especial blessing, for which we ought to be exceedingly thankful. Indeed, I am by no means certain that it would not be proper to cause Father Alaric to make allusion to it, either on the fête day of our daughter, or any other solemnity which—”

  “Indeed, papa, you do not know half Madame Odenthal’s good qualities yet!” exclaimed Gertrude, (who, like a “chartered libertine” as she was, scrupled not to interrupt her grandiloquent papa now and then, when she fancied her mother would be spared something she did not like to hear thereby). “She knows so much! And then her being an Englishwoman is such a great advantage to me; for though mamma speaks it, I believe, quite as well as a native, I do not profit by it half so much as I ought to do. But it is more polite, you know, to address Madame Odenthal in her native language.”

  “There again!” exclaimed the proud father; “that
is an idea quite worthy of a reigning prince receiving an ambassador!”

  “Oh! my dear papa! That is exactly what I should like to do!” cried Gertrude, clasping her hands, and speaking with great energy.

  It would be impossible to do justice by description to the look of the baron as he gazed at her while she uttered this tirade. The reader may easily understand what was passing in her mind better than her mother could do; for she, good lady, had never been initiated into Gertrude’s mysterious passion for royalty, and for everything connected with, or approaching it. But her father, notwithstanding his constitutional slowness of comprehension, understood her thoughts perfectly, and in his heart of hearts, he breathed “Amen!”

  CHAPTER XX.

  THE proposal made by Gertrude, that Madame Odenthal should take up her residence at the castle, was immediately acted upon; and evidently to the great satisfaction of all the persons concerned. The idea of being useful to the benefactors of her son, would have made a much less agreeable proposal welcome to Madame Odenthal herself; and as to Rupert, he only felt that the state of things thus suddenly brought about, so completely realized all his fancy could have suggested, had that faculty been taxed to sketch what he could have most desired; that he almost feared he was dreaming, and should wake, and find that “there was no such thing.”

  Gertrude, of course, was pleased, for the scheme was her own; and as for the poor baroness, she felt that the gratification of the wish, so long delayed had come to her at a time when it was infinitely more valuable than it could have been at any other.

  But, notwithstanding all this measureless content on all sides, an event was threatening, and even fast approaching, which was prognosticated by none, save Madame Odenthal; and even by her it was anticipated as a calamity by no means likely to occur soon, but only as a too certain termination of the insidious malady she was watching.

  But it was the baron, whose astonishment appeared to be as great as it was possible his grief to be, at hearing that the consort of the reigning Schwanberg had actually departed this life before she had fully accomplished two-thirds of the age which he had already reached!

  The only relief he found in this amazed state of mind, was from the conviction, which was the result of long meditation on the subject, that it was greatly more likely that his daughter, who so strikingly resembled him in the powers of her intellect, should resemble him also in longevity, than that she should unite her mother’s physical weakness to his own intellectual strength.

  Having, by the force of reasoning, brought himself to this conclusion, he determined to bear — and he did bear — his loss with every appearance of the most heroic philosophy.

  The brave-hearted, stalwart Rupert wept secretly, as even a stout man may weep, who feels that he has lost a friend to whom the whole world could never, in his estimation, show an equal; and the young man’s mother forgot her own grief, as she watched and comprehended his.

  But who can paint the feelings of the miserable Gertrude? She meditated, day and night, upon her own condition, and felt that she was a wreck.

  The contrast between the characters of her father and her mother, would have taught her to feel, if nothing else had done so, the beautiful, the brilliant, the estimable, and the loveable qualities of the latter. She felt too, that in her own nature, there was a leaven that might be likely enough, now she had lost her, to change all that was good within her, to something greatly the reverse. These were points in her character which the influence of her mother had rendered comparatively harmless, but which poor Gertrude felt might master her, now that the restraint was removed which had come in a shape too dear to be resisted; for she had loved, and hugged, the chain which had restrained her wilfulness, with too deep and true affection to render it at all likely that she would ever break it.

  But now! —

  Without a metaphor, the poor girl trembled as she looked forward, and thought of all the perils which were likely to beset her.

  Her adoring father, her watchful companion, Madame Odenthal, her kind friend Rupert, ay, and every servant in the castle, looked at her pale cheek and altered eye, and pitied her.

  But there was not one among them who had any true notion of the real state of her mind, or the degree in which she suffered. They were, however, all right in one opinion, which the experience (greater or less) of each enabled them all to form; for they all consoled themselves by the conviction that this depth of sorrow could not last for ever... “for, if it did,” as the old housekeeper very justly observed, “the young lady must needs follow her mother to the family vault; for nobody who knows anything about what could kill, or what could cure, would be fool enough to doubt that die she must, if she went on long in that fashion.”

  And Gertrude did not die; for harvest does not follow seedtime with more benignant certainty, than that mysterious process takes place by which the suffering caused by the death of those we love, is healed.

  There was, too, another power in action, by which Gertrude was greatly assisted in her efforts to resume her former occupations; and this was a sort of self-esteem, or rather a longing for self-esteem, which she knew she could only obtain by conquering the heart-sinking despondency which had beset her; for, as her solitary musings most truly told her, it was not only the piercing grief for her mother’s loss which had thus broken her spirit, but a selfish and cowardly feeling about her own welfare.

  “If, indeed,” she inwardly exclaimed, “I am so utterly incapable of guiding myself, I am both unworthy to live, and unworthy to call myself her child. But, God help me! I sometimes think that I hardly know right from wrong!”

  Once awakened, however, to the necessity of deciding this tremendous question for herself, her energy and her health returned; and whatever blunders she might make, or whatever other risks she might run, that of prematurely entering the family vault was not among them.

  This amendment in her health and spirits did not take place without her being fully conscious of it; and she rejoiced at it, not only as a relief from suffering, but as a proof that she was neither too weak nor too wilful to conquer a state of mind which she knew was pernicious to her welfare.

  Pretty nearly the first use that she made of her recovered activity of mind, was to set about arranging such a scheme for her domestic life as might ensure her that nearly first of blessings, a perfect command of her time, and yet surround her with such an appearance of domestic surveillance as might set gossip at defiance.

  But how was this to be achieved? How was she to obtain the personal and intellectual freedom so indispensable to the happiness of such a mind as hers, and yet preserve the external appearance of living under the influence of such authority as a young girl of seventeen ought to acknowledge and submit to?

  But, difficult as the question certainly was, her first thought solved it, though in a way that few besides herself, if placed in the same situation, would have ventured to propose.

  Her first thought suggested the idea that, of all the persons she had ever seen, Madame Odenthal was the only one whom she should like to have with her, in the three-fold capacity of governess, companion, and chaperon.

  When the humble position in which she had been accustomed to see Father Alaric’s sister was considered on the one side, and the inordinate love of everything precisely the reverse which constituted the master-passion of her father, was contemplated on the other, it is difficult to understand how she ever found courage to attempt so desperate an undertaking as the convincing the Baron von Schwanberg that the most proper person he could select to superintend the important business of completing her education, and, subsequently, the more important business still, of acting as her chaperon in society, was the quiet-looking Madame Odenthal.

  But the young Baroness Gertrude being very decidedly of opinion that she should prefer this arrangement to any other that suggested itself to her, she determined, without a moment’s hesitation, that the attempt should be made.

  Whether the confidence she felt th
at she should succeed arose chiefly from her knowledge of her father’s character, or from the consciousness of her own, may be doubtful.

  It would be long to tell, and needless too, how she contrived to place the question before him, so as to make all that was really in favour of it convey to his mind not only its own rational weight, but with it an ingenious superstructure, speedily constructed after such a fashion as to touch his monomaniacal passion for being supreme.

  She painted, with an eloquence which positively made him shudder, the possible, nay, the probable airs of authority which such persons as were usually selected for such a situation were likely to assume; and, at length, summed up her pleadings by saying, “If you and I, my dearest father, were, in our characters and views of life, more like the generality of those we see around us, it would be well for us to select for this situation a person who might be supposed capable of adding dignity to our establishment; but, as it is, it appears to me that all our dignity must emanate from OURSELVES.”

  There was something in the manner in which the young baroness spoke these words, as well as in the words themselves, which completely overpowered every objection. They seemed to find a thrice-repeating echo in his heart.

  In short, the cause was won; and all that Gertrude had left to do, in order to have this important affair settled exactly in her own way, was to persuade Madame Odenthal to undertake the performance of duties for which she knew herself, poor, dear woman, to be most particularly unfit.

  But here again Gertrude proved herself equal to the performance of a very difficult task, and she set about it, too, with considerable ingenuity, and with a variation in her method which proved her to possess considerable insight into other characters besides that of her father.