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. Madame 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 father's 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 bede 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.
On the Monday afternoon, when the three young ladies were in the western drawing-room together, the Baron entered, and addressing Adeline, formally requested her to grant him the honour of a few minutes' conversation.
A strange rising in the throat; a dread, that caused her frame to quiver; a terrified, imploring, but unavailing look at Rose and Mary; and the door closed on them, and Adeline and her acknowledged lover were left alone.
She need not have feared. The Baron did not say a word to her that he might not have said to her mother. But he produced from his pocket the engagement-ring, which had been taken to Paris to be made smaller--it was a plain circlet of gold--and requested she would grant him the honour of allowing him to replace it on her finger.
Without a word of remonstrance--for what could she say?--and sick at heart, Adeline held out her hand; and the Baron ventured ceremoniously to touch it, while he slipped on the ring: in the very act and deed of doing which, the door opened, and into the room strode Mr. St. John, twirling in his hand a French marigold.
He saw them standing together, Adeline's hand stretched out, and meeting both of his; and he looked black as night. It has been said, in this book or another, that Frederick St. John was of quick temperament: on rare occasions he gave way to violent explosions of passion. It is probable that an outburst would have come then; but the Baron, with a polite bow to Adeline, quitted the room. And Mr. St. John, though certain as man could well be that he had no cause for jealousy, gave way to the irritation of his hasty spirit.
"So, Mademoiselle de Castella," he broke forth, "you have been enjoying a stolen interview with your lover! I must beg your pardon for having unintentionally interrupted it."
She turned deprecatingly to him; she did not speak, or defend herself from the charge; but the look of anguish on her countenance was so keen, the glance at himself so full of pure, truthful love, that the gentleman's better nature revolted at the temper he had shown, and he caught her to his heart.
"But they were cruel words," she sobbed; "and just now I have enough to bear."
"Let this be my peace-offering, my darling," he said, placing in her hand the French marigold.
St. John had long ago heard the tale of the French marigold, and Miss Rose Darling's sombre forebodings touching himself. He had been assiduously cultivating the flower in the garden at the Lodge, and this, that he now gave to Adeline, was the first which had appeared.
"This ring, Adeline," he said, drawing it from her finger. "He placed it there, I suppose?"
"You saw him doing so," she answered.
He slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, and then drew out his watch.
"Give me back the ring, Frederick."
"No, Adeline. It shall never encircle your finger again."
"But what am I to say if its absence is noticed? He said mamma had given him permission to replace it. She will be sure to ask where it is."
"Say anything. That it fell off--or wear a glove until evening. I will then tell you what to do. I cannot stay longer now."
When Mary Carr was dressed for the evening ball, she went into Adeline's room. Louise was putting the finishing strokes to her young lady's toilette, and very satisfactory they were, when Madame de Castella entered, holding in her hand a small circular case.
"Look here, Adeline," she said, opening it and displaying a costly bracelet, one of beauty and finish so rare, that all eyes were riveted on it. Exquisitely wrought, fine gold links, in the different crossings of which were inserted brilliants of the purest water, with pendant chains flashing with brilliants and gold.
"Oh, mamma!" was the enraptured exclamation. "What a lovely bracelet!"
"It is indeed, Adeline. It is yours."
"Ciel!" ejaculated Louise, lifting her hands.
"Mamma, how can I thank you!" she exclaimed, taking the jewels.
"You need not thank me at all, Adeline. It is the Baron's present. Make your acknowledgments to him."
Had the bracelet been a serpent, Adeline could not have dropped it quicker, and, but for Mary Carr, it would have fallen to the ground. Madame de Castella thought it was an accident.
"Don't be careless, child. Put it on. You must wear it tonight."
"Oh no, no, mamma!" she returned, her cheek flushing. "Not tonight."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed her mother; "you are as shy as a young child. When the Baron presented it to me for you, he said, 'Un petit cadeau pour ce soir.' Clasp it on, Louise."
"Mamma," she implored, a great deal more energetically than Madame de Castella thought the case could demand, "do not oblige me to appear in this bracelet tonight."
"Adeline, Iinsiston its being worn. Persons who know you less well than we do, would suspect that affectation, more than delicacy, induced your refusal to wear a gift from one who will soon be your husband."
"Not my husband yet," faltered Adeline. "Not until next year."
"Indeed he will, Adeline," said Madame de Castella. "Before we go to the South."
Her colour came and went painfully. She sat down, gasping out rather than speaking, the words that issued from her white lips.
"We go to the South in two months!"
"Dear child," laughed Madame de Castella, "don't look so scared. There's no reason for it: a wedding is quite an everyday affair, I can assure you. This week I write to order your trousseau."
Louise fastened the bracelet on Adeline's arm, and she went down to the reception-rooms as one in a dream. If the younger guests, as they gazed on her excessive beauty, could but have read the bitter despair at her heart, the strife and struggle within, they would have envied her less. A single string of pearls was entwined with her hair, and she wore a pearl necklace; no other ornament, save this conspicuous bracelet of de la Chasse's. But in the bosom of her low white dress, almost hidden by its trimmings of lace, was enshrined St. John's French marigold.
The guests had nearly all arrived, and Adeline had done her best towards greeting them, when in passing in the direction of the colonnade, the Baron came up to her, She was longing for a breath of the evening air--as if that would cool the brow's inward fever!
"Permit me to exchange this flower with the one you have there, mademoiselle," he said, holding out a white camellia of rare beauty. And, with a light, respectful touch, he removed the French marigold from the folds of the lace.
Did de la Chasse suspect who had been the donor of that cherished French marigold? Did he remember seeing it in St. John's hand that same afternoon? It is impossible to tell; but he seemed more urgent over this trifling matter than a Frenchman in general allows himself to be.
"Sir, you forget yourself!" exclaimed Adeline, angry to excitement. "Return me my flower."
"It is unsuitable, mademoiselle," he rejoined, retaining his hold of the French marigold. "A vulgar, ordinary garden-flower is not in accordance with your dress tonight--or with you."
"You presume upon your position," retorted Adeline, pushing aside the white camellia, and struggling to keep down her anger and her tears. "Do not insult me, sir, but give me back my own flower."
"What is all this?" demanded M. de Castella, coming up. "Adeline, you are excited."
"I have incurred your daughter's displeasure, it would seem, sir," explained the Baron, showing symptoms of excitement in his turn. "Mademoiselle appeared in the rooms wearing this flower--a worthless, common garden-flower!--and because I wished to present her with one more suitable, she seems to imply that I only do it by way of insult. I don't understand, ma foi!"
"Nor I," returned M. de Castella. "Take the camellia, Adeline," he added, sternly and coldly. "Caprice and coquetry are beneathyou."
The Baron put the camellia in her now unresisting hand, and amused himself with pulling to pieces the petals of the other flower. Adeline burst into a violent paroxysm of tears, and hurried on to the colonnade.
And all about a stupid French marigold!
"Let her go and have a cry to herself," said M. de Castella, walking off with the Baron; "it will bring her to reason. The coquetry of women passes belief. They are all alike. It appears I was mistaken when I deemed my daughter an exception."
Adeline, in her tears and excitement, rushed across the lawn. It was certainly a senseless thing to cry about, but, just then, a straw would have ruffled her equanimity. She had been compelled to wear the hated bracelet: she had been told that she would very speedily be made the wife of de la Chasse; she had stood by him, recognized by the crowd of guests as his future wife; and, blended with all this, was a keen sensation of disappointment at the non-appearance of Mr. St. John. She stood with her forehead pressed against the bark of a tree, sobbing aloud in her anguish where none could hear her. Presently, her ear caught the sound of footsteps, and she prepared to dart further away: but they were some that she knew and loved too well. He was coming through the shrubbery at a rapid pace, and she stood out and confronted him.
"Why, Adeline!" he exclaimed, in astonishment. And, then, the momentary restraint on her feelings removed, she fell forward in his arms, and sobbed aloud with redoubled violence.
"Oh, Adeline, what ails you? What has happened? Be calm, be calm, my only love! I am by your side now: what grief is there that I cannot soothe away?"
He became quite alarmed at her paroxysm of grief, and, half leading, half carrying her to the nearest bench, seated her there and laid her head upon his arm, and held her gently to him, and spoke not a word until she was calmer.
By degrees she told him all. The gift of the bracelet, her mother's threats of the coming marriage--threatsthey sounded to Adeline--and the dispute with the Baron. Upon this last point she was rather obscure. "I had a simple flower in my dress, and he wanted me to replace it with a rare one, a camellia." She did not say it was the one he had given her; she would rather have led him to think that it was not: never, until she should be indeed his, could she tell him how passionately and entirely she loved. But he divined all; he required no telling. And yet, knowing this; knowing, as he did, how her very life was bound up in his; how could he, only a few weeks later, doubt, or profess to doubt, of this enduring love?
"Adeline," he said, as he paced the narrow path restlessly in the moonlight, she still sitting on the bench, "I have done very wrong: wrong by you and your friends, wrong by myself, wrong by de la Chasse. I see it now. I ought to have declared all before he came to Beaufoy. I will see M. de Castella tomorrow morning."
She shivered, as if struck by a cold wind. "Remember your promise."
"It must be done," he answered. "I yielded too readily to your wishes, perhaps to my own motives for desiring delay. But for you to be looked upon as his future wife--condemned to accept and wear his presents--this shall not be. It is placing us all three in a false position; you must see that it is. Neither did I know that the marriage was being hastened on."
"He goes away tomorrow morning, and all immediate danger will be over," she urged. "Do not yet speak words that might--nay, thatwould--lead to our separation! Let us have another week or two for consideration; and of--of happiness."
"I cannot imagine why you entertain these gloomy anticipations," he rejoined; "why think that my speaking to your father will be the signal for warfare. Believe me, Adeline, the St. Johns of Castle Wafer are not accustomed to find their overtures for an alliance despised; they have mated with the noblest in their own land."
"Oh, it is not that; it is not that! Frederick, you know it is not.--Hark!" she suddenly broke off, starting from her seat as if to fly. "There are footsteps approaching from the house. If it should be papa!--or de la Chasse!"
"And what if it be?" he answered, drawing her hand within his arm and raising himself to his full height, in the haughty spirit that was upon him, to stand and confront the intruders. "I will explain all now: and show that you are doing neither wrong nor harm in being here with me, for that you are my affianced wife."
But the footsteps, whosesoever they might be, passed off in a different direction: and they strolled on, talking, to the borders of the miniature lake. It was nearly as light as day, very warm, very beautiful. White fleecy clouds floated around the moon; the air, redolent with the odour of flowers, was one balmy breath of perfume; and Adeline forgot her trouble in the peaceful scene.
"What made you so late?" she asked. "I had fancied you would come early."
"I have been to Odesque."
"To Odesque!"
He was drawing a small paper from his waistcoat pocket. Adeline saw that it contained a ring of plain gold. Motioning to her to take her glove off--and she obeyed mechanically--he proceeded to place it on her finger; speaking solemn words:
"With this ring I will thee wed: with my body I thee worship; with all my worldly goods I will thee endow, until death us do part: and thus do I plight unto thee my troth."
She knew the slightly altered words were in the English Protestant marriage-service, for she had heard Rose, and some of the other schoolgirls as foolish as Rose was, repeat them in their thoughtless pastime. There was a solemnity in Mr. St. John's voice and manner which imparted an awe to her feelings, never before experienced. The tears of deep emotion rose to her eyes and her frame trembled: she could not have been more strongly moved, had she in very truth been plighting her troth to him before the holy altar.
"Take you care of it, Adeline. Let none remove it from your finger as I removed the other. It shall be your wedding-ring."
"It is not the same ring?" she whispered, unable quite to recover herself. "His."
"His!Look here, Adeline."
He took another ring from his pocket as he spoke. It was cut in two parts; and he threw them into the water.
"There goes his ring, Adeline. May his pretensions go with it!"
"It is for this you have been to Odesque?"
"It is."
They turned to the house, walking quickly now, neither caring for Adeline's absence to be so prolonged as to attract notice. Long as it may have seemed to take in the telling, she had yet been away from the house but a few minutes. Adeline could not quite forget her fears.
"If mamma could only be kept from ordering the trousseau!" she suddenly exclaimed, more in answer to her own thoughts than to him.
"Where's the necessity of preventing her?"
She looked up wonderingly, and caught his smile full of meaning, all apparent in the moonlight.
"The things ordered and intended for Madame de la Chasse--will they not serve equally well for Mrs. Frederick St. John?"
"Oh--but"--and her downcast face felt glowing with heat "nothing will be wanted at all yet for--any one."
"Indeed!Ithink they will be wanted very soon. Do you suppose," he added; laughing, "I should be permitted to carry you away with me to the South without an outfit?"
"I am not going to the South now," she quickly said.
"Yes, Adeline. I hope you and I shall winter there."
"I am quite well now."
"I know you are: and that it will be almost a superfluous precaution. Nevertheless, it is well to be on the safe side. My darling!" and he bent over her, "you would not be dismayed at the prospect of passing a whole winter alone with me?"
Dismayed! To the uttermost parts of the earth with him, and for a whole lifetime Father, mother, country, home--what were they all, in comparison with him?
As they gained the open lawn, a dark figure swept across their path. Adeline shrank at being seen alone with Mr. St. John. It was Father Marc, the officiating priest of the little neighbouring chapel, and the family confessor, a worthy and very zealous man. He turned and looked at Adeline, but merely said, "Bon soir, mon enfant," and took off his hat to Mr. St. John. Mr. St. John raised his in return, saying nothing, and Adeline bent low, as one in contrition.
"Bon soir, mon père."
She glided onwards to a side door, that she might gain her chamber and see what could be done towards removing the traces of emotion from her face. Whilst Mr. St. John strode round to the front entrance, and rang such a peal upon the tinkling old bell that half-a-dozen servants came flying to the door.
And as Adeline stood by his side that night in the brilliant ball-room, and watched the admiration so many were ready, unsought, to accord him, and marked the cordial regard in which both her father and mother held him, and remembered his lineage and connections, the fortune and position that must eventually be his, she almost reasoned that overtures for her from such a man could never be declined.
But the Baron saw that she had thrown away the white camellia. "Petite coquette!" he exclaimed to himself, in tolerant excuse: not in anger. It never entered into the French brains of the Baron de la Chasse to imagine that the young lady, being under an engagement to marry him, could have the slightest wish to marry any one else.
The grey walls of the Château de Beaufoy basked idly in the evening sun. In the western drawing-room, M. and Madame de Castella, the old lady, and Agnes de Beaufoy were playing whist. Its large window was thrown open to the terrace or colonnade, where had gathered the younger members of the party, the green-striped awning being let down between some of the outer pillars. Mary Carr and Adeline were seated, unravelling a heap of silks, which had got into a mess in the ivory work-basket; Rose Darling flitted about amongst the exotics, her fine hair shining like threads of gold when, ever and anon, it came in contact with the sunlight, as she flirted--it was very like it--with Mr. St. John. But Rose began to turn cross, for he teased her.
"Did you write to England for the song today?" she asked. "Ah, don't answer: I see you forgot it. Most of the writing you are guilty of goes to one person, I expect. No wonder you forget other matters."
"Indeed! To whom?"
"I won't betray you now," glancing at Adeline. "I will be compassionate."
"Pray don't trouble yourself about compassion for me, ma belle," returned Mr. St. John, in a provokingly slighting manner. "It will be thrown away."
"Compassion foryou, Mr. St. John! Don't flatter yourself. I was thinking of another."
Adeline looked up: a sharp, perplexed glance.
"You are mysterious, Rose," said he, laughing.
"Yes. But I could speak out if I would"
"I dare you," answered Mr. St. John. "Speak away."
"You know there is one in England, who monopolizes all your letters--not to speak of your dreams."
"Rose!" exclaimed Mary Carr, a dim shadow of Rose's meaning darting uneasily across her. "How can you talk this nonsense to Mr. St. John?"
"He asked for it. But he knows it is true. Look at his conscious face now!" she saucily continued.
"The only lady in England honoured with my correspondence," said he, in a more serious tone than he had hitherto spoken, "is Mrs. St. John."
"That's almost true," cried the provoking girl--"almost. She is not Mrs. St. John yet, onlyto be."
A strange wild spasm caught Adeline de Castella's heart. Would Rose have continued, had she known it? Did St. John suspect it?
"I spoke of my mother, Rose," he said. "She is the only lady who claims, or receives, letters from me."
"Honour bright?" asked Rose.
"Honour bright," repeated Mr. St. John: "the honour of her only son."
"Oh, faithless that you are then!" burst forth Rose. "Will you deny that there is one in England to whom your letters are due, if not sent; one whose shadow you were for many, many months--if not years--one, beautiful as a painters dream?"
"Bah, Rose!" he said, his lips curling with a proud, defiant smile, "you are lapsing into ecstasies."
"Shall I tell her name--the name of his own true lady-love?" asked Rose, turning round, a world of triumph on her bright, laughing brow. "Mary Carr knows it already."
"You are out of your senses!" exclaimed Mary Carr, all too eagerly. "Don't impose your fabulous tales on us."
"Shall I tell it?" repeated Rose, maintaining her ground and her equanimity.
"Tell it," said Mr. St. John, carelessly. Did he think she knew so much!
"Tell it," repeated Adeline, but it was the motion of the syllables, rather than the words, that came from between her white and parted lips.
"Sarah Beauclerc."
A transient surprise crossed Mr. St. John's countenance, and was gone again.Adeline saw it: and from that wild, bitter moment, a pang of anguish took root within her, which was never to be erased during life.
"You are under a slight misapprehension, Rose," said Mr. St. John, with indifference.
"Am I? The world was under another, perhaps, when it asserted that the honour of Mr. St. John's hand would fall to Sarah Beauclerc."
"That it certainly was--if it ever did assert it. And I might believe it possible, were the world peopled with Rose Darlings."
"Look here," exclaimed Rose, snatching his pocket-handkerchief from a gilt cage, where he had thrown it to protect the beautiful bird from the rays of the setting sun. "Look at this, 'Frederick St. John,' worked in hair!"
It happened to be the handkerchief they had picked up that first morning in the painting-room. Rose talked on, in the recklessness of her spirits; and Adeline sat, drinking-in her words.
"Shedid this for him, I have not the least doubt. Look how elaborately it is worked, even to the finishings of the crest. It is her hair, Sarah Beauclerc's."
A random assertion. Rose neither knew nor cared whether she was right. In her present humour she would have stood to anything. It is possible: not likely, but barely possible: that she had stumbled on a bit of fact. Mr. St. John remained supremely indifferent, denying nothing. She talked on in her access of gaiety.
"This is his favourite handkerchief: I have noticed that. The others are marked with ink. I dare say shegavethe handkerchief, as well as marked it. Let it alone, Mr. St. John: I shall show it round, if I like. A rather significant present from so lovely a girl! But it's known she wasfolleafter him. He reciprocated the compliment then: he was always at the dean's. I don't know how it may be now," she added, after a pause, and there was a significant meaning in her tone as she looked to Adeline. Then, with a saucy glance at Mr. St. John, she sang out, in her clear, rich voice, to a tune of her own,
"It is well to be off with the old love,Beore you are on with the new."
"It is well to be off with the old love,
Beore you are on with the new."
Adeline rose, and passed quietly into the drawing-room, her step self-possessed, her bearing calm: the still exterior covers the deepest suffering. But Mr. St. John suspected nothing.
"Rose," he said, quoting a French axiom, "vous aimez bien à rire, mais rien n'est beau que le vrai."
"Ah," she answered, with another, "ce n'est pas être bien aise que de rire." Perhaps the deepest truth she had uttered that evening.
With outward calmnessthere, but oh! the whirlwind of despairing agony which shook Adeline's frame as she sank down by the bedside in her own chamber! That in one short minute, desolation so complete should have swept over her heart, and she be able to endure it and live! I tell you no false story: I am writing of one of those sensitive hearts which must thus suffer and be shaken. To have given up her whole love to one, in a passion little short of idolatry; to have forgotten early ties and kindred in the spell of this strong devotion--and now to be told there wasanotherto claim his vows, another to whom they had first been offered!
The dream in which she had been living for months was over--or, at least, it had been robbed of its golden colouring. The serpent DOUBT had found its entrance into her heart: the fiend JEALOUSY had taken possession of it, never to be wholly eradicated.
Frederick St. John was certainly one of earth's favoured people, with his manly beauty and his master intellect. It seemed to her that the world might worship him without a blush. He had made her life the Elysium that poets tell of; and now she found that he loved, or had loved, another. Like an avalanche falling down the Alps and crushing the hapless traveller, so had these tidings fallen upon her heart, andshatteredit.
Adeline de Castella smoothed her brow at last, and returned downstairs. She had taken no account of the time; but, by the advanced twilight, it would seem she had been away an hour, and Rose inquired whether she had been buried.
Following Adeline on to the colonnade, where the whole party were now seated, came the old Spanish servant, Silva, bearing a letter for Mr. St. John. The ominous words, "très pressée," written on it, had caused Madame Baret to despatch it with haste to the château.
"Does any one wait?" he inquired.
"Si, Señor."
"It is well," he said, and retreated inside the room.
"You have received bad news!" exclaimed Madame de Castella, when he reappeared.
"I have," he said, with controlled emotion. "I must depart instantly for England." And it was well the shades of evening were gathering, or they would inevitably have seen the death-like pallor on Adeline's stricken face.
Mr. St. John handed them the letter to read. A dangerous accident had happened to his mother. The horses of her carriage took fright, and she opened the door and jumped out. The physicians feared concussion of the brain.
"Are you going?" exclaimed M. de Castella, as St. John held out his hand.
"Yes. I feel every moment wasted that does not speed me on my journey."
And in another instant he was gone. Without a word more of adieu to Adeline than he gave to the rest. There was no opportunity for it.
"I don't know that I would have angered him, had I foreseen this," cried Rose, candidly, as she lingered on the terrace with Adeline.
"Didyou anger him?"
"I think I did. A little bit. He should not have dared me to it."
Adeline looked over the balustrades as she listened, seeing nothing. A painful question was upon her lips; but her poor sensitive heart--how unfit it was for the wear and tear of life!--beat so violently that she had to wait before she put it.
"What you said was nottrue, Rose?"
"What did I say?" rejoined Rose, whose thoughts had veered to fifty other things in her light carelessness.
"That he loved--what was the name?--Sarah Beauclerc."
The pretty assumption of forgetfulness! "What was the name?" As if the name, every distinct letter of it, had not engraved itself on her brain in letters of fire, when it was first spoken! Rose answered impulsively.
"It was quite true, Adeline. He knows that it is true. I as certainly believed that he loved her, as that we are standing here. People say she would have been his wife before this, but for the dispute, or estrangement, or whatever it is, between him and his brother. He can't marry until his debts are cleared: and he is living quietly to clear them. You should hear what Margaret says about it; she told me a great deal the very day before I came here."
Her crushed heart fluttered against her side. "She is nice-looking, you say?"
"Nice-looking! she's beautiful! One of the loveliest girls in society. A fair, proud face, just as proud as his own. Georgina Beauclerc is very pretty; but she's nothing beside her."
She could have cried aloud in her anguish as she listened to these praises of her rival: and how she schooled her voice to maintain its calm indifference, she knew not.
"Who is Georgina Beauclerc?"
"Her cousin. She's the daughter of the Dean of Westerbury: Fred St. John's native place, you know. Sarah is the daughter of the dean's brother, General Beauclerc. Her mother's dead, the Lady Sarah; and since then she has lived with the dean. In point of family it would be a suitable match; and I dare say in point of fortune."
"And in point of love?"
There was a peculiar sound in the hesitation, a tremor which struck on Rose's ear. She turned her face full on Adeline's.
"I believe with all my heart, from what I've heard, that therewaslove between them," answered Rose. "Perhapsis. Adeline, I don't say this in ill-nature, but because it may be good for you to know it. I am careless and random in general, but Icanbe serious; and I am speaking seriously now. He is a gay-mannered man, you know, a general admirer; those attractive men usually are so; but I have little doubt that his love was given to Sarah Beauclerc."
Rose went into the room with the last sentence. She had really spoken from a good motive. Believing that Adeline was getting to like Frederick St. John more than was good for her, consistently with her engagement to the French baron, a word in season might act as a warning. Little did Rose suspect how far things had gone between them.
An hour passed. All save Adeline were gathered in the lighted room. Some were playing chess, some écarté, some were telling Father Marc, who had dropped in, of the young Englishman's sudden departure for England and its cause. Rose was at the piano, singing English songs in a subdued voice. Never was there a sweeter voice than hers: and old Madame de Beaufoy could have listened always to the bygone songs of her native land.
Adeline had not stirred from the terrace; she was leaning still on its balustrades, gazing forth apparently into the night. But that Madame de Castella did not observe her absence, she had been called in long ago, ivout of the night air.
"Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!It is a green-eyed monster, which doth makestyleThe food it feeds on."
"Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is a green-eyed monster, which doth make
styleThe food it feeds on."
That reader of the human heart never put forth a greater truth, a more needed warning. How vainly! We can smile now, we can wonder at the "trifles" that once mocked us; but we did not smile at the time. It is asserted that where there is love, impassioned love, there must be jealousy; and who shall venture to dispute it? Love is most exacting. Its idol must not listen to a tender word, or bestow a look of admiration on another. The faintest shadow of a suspicion will invoke the presence of jealousy; what then when facts and details are put forth, as they had been by Rose? It had aroused the most refined torments of the distressing passion; and let none doubt that they were playing their part cruelly on Adeline's heart. Not that she believed quite all: the hint that he might be intending to marry Sarah Beauclerc but touched her ear and fell away again. She knew enough of his honourable nature to be certain that he would never have spoken of marriage to herself, had he been under the slightest obligation of it to another. But that he loved the girl with deep intensity, or had loved her, Adeline never doubted. And so she stood on: bitterly giving way to this strange anguish which had fallen on her; wondering how long he would stay in England, and how often during his stay there he would see her beautiful rival. The very fact of his having gone without a loving word of adieu seemed a knell of unlucky omen.
But what is that movement which her eye has caught at a distance? Who or what is it, advancing with a hasty step from the dark trees? Ah! the wild rising of her pulse has told her, before the outlines of his form become distinct, as he emerges into that plot of pale light! It washe--he whom she thought to have looked upon at present for the last time; and the ecstatic feeling which rushed over her spirit was such as almost momentarily to obliterate the cruel doubts that oppressed her. He had changed his dress, and was habited in travelling costume. His tread over the lawn was noiseless, and little less so as he ran up the steps to the colonnade.
"How fortunate that you are here, Adeline!" he whispered. "I could not go without endeavouring to obtain a word with you, though I doubted being able to accomplish it."
Adeline, painfully agitated, trembling to excess, both in her heart and frame, murmured some confused words about the time he was losing.
"I am not losing one precious moment," he explained. "My own preparations were soon made: not to those necessary to convey me to Odesque. As it always happens in these emergencies, the spring chaise--and there's nothing else to take me--had been lent out to Farmer Pichon. Baret is gone for it, and will come on with it here, which is all in the way. We shall catch the first train. Why do you tremble so, my love?" he added, as the fit of ague, which seemed to possess her, shook even his arm. "Are you cold?"
Cold! But most men would have had but the same idea.
"Now, Adeline, for one moment's grave consultation. Shall I write, and lay my proposals before M. de Castella, or shall they wait until I return?"
"Oh, wait to do so!" she implored. "In mercy, wait!"
"I would prefer it myself," said Mr. St. John, "for I feel I ought to be present to support you through all that may then occur. But, Adeline, should I be detained long, there will be no alternative: the preparations for your wedding will soon be actively begun, and render my speaking an act of imperative necessity."
She laid her head upon his arm, moaning.
"Cheer up," he whispered: "I am only putting the worst view of the case. I trust that a few days may bring me back to you. Write to me daily, Adeline: everything that occurs: I shall then be able to judge how long I may be absent with safety. I was thinking, Adeline, as I came along, that it might be better if my letters to you are sent under cover to Rose or Mary. You are aware that I do not mention this for myself--I should be proud to address you without disguise--but for your own peace. Were I to write openly, it might force explanations on you before my return."
Ever anxious for her! Her heart bounded with gratitude. "Under cover to Mary Carr," she said.
"We must part now," he whispered, as a faint rumbling broke upon their ears from the distance, "you hear my signal. It is fast approaching."
"You will come back as soon as you are at liberty?" she sighed.
"Ay, the very instant. Need you question it, Adeline?"
He strained her to his heart, and the painful tears coursed down her cheeks. "God bless you, and take care of you, and keep you in peace until I return; my dear, my dear, my only love!" And when he had passed away, Adeline asked herself if that last lingering farewell kiss, which he had pressed upon her lips--she asked herself, with burning blushes, if she were sure it had not been returned.
And during the brief moments of this sudden interview, she had lost sight of the torment about Sarah Beauclerc.
The second evening after Mr. St. John's departure, before they had risen from the dinner-table, Silva brought in the letters. Two from England amongst them, bearing on their seals, as Rose Darling expressed it, the arms and quarterings of all the St. Johns. The one was addressed to Madame de Castella; the other was handed to Miss Carr.
Mary looked at it with unqualified surprise. The fact was, Adeline, not expecting they could hear from Mr. St. John till the following day, had put off the few words of explanation she meant to speak, feeling shy at the task.
"Why should Mr. St. John write to me?" exclaimed Mary Carr. But Adeline, who was sitting next her, pressed her hand convulsively, under cover of the tablecloth, to prevent her opening it. Miss Carr began dimly to understand, and laid the letter down by the side of her dessert-plate.
"Why don't you open it, Mary?" repeated Rose, impatiently.
"No," said Miss Carr, in a half-joking manner, "there may be secrets in it that I don't care to read before people." And Rose, whose curiosity was excited, could have boxed her ears.
"Mr. St. John writes that his mother is better," said Madame de Castella; "the injuries prove less serious than they were at first supposed. By the next post, he hopes to send us word that she is out of danger."
"This letter, Adeline," exclaimed Mary Carr, when they were alone--"I fancy it may not be meant for me."
"You can open it," replied Adeline, timidly. "Perhaps--I think--there may be one for me inside it."
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:--